Re: XyWrite Development

[kfrank@xxxxxxxx]

Annie Fisher's comments about upgrading from Xy4 deserve a
response.

First, she said "because sloppy documentation of v4 function
redefinitions makes porting masses of v3 xpl code hazardous..."

You are really making a mistake there, as one of the continuing
efforts and improvements in successive Xy4 versions is making
III+ XPL code run natively in Xy4.

Second, she said that she wouldn't upgrade her 4.001 (at an
exhorbitant cost of $15) "as a protest against being charged for
v3 support ..."

Frankly I find that amazing. I cannot for the life of me
understand how people can expect any organization to be able to
function providing free services indefinitely for people who
aren't providing any current (or even reasonably current)
payment for it. Its like saying an automobile manufacturer
should provide free labor for you car forever. It costs us a lot
 of money to pay the salaries, training and other overhead costs
of technical support personnel. We (and every other software
vendor) would quickly go out of business if we didn't say to our
customers that one way or another if you want our goods and
services you have to pay for it.

In many respects we went substantially farther than almost any
other vendor in continuing to provide free support for
discontinued products. It just got to the point where a
significant percentage of our support resources were devoted to
serving people who last paid us anything (and then usually a
relatively small amount) 5, 6 or more years ago.

The policy we have adopted is in my judgment extremely fair. You
can either buy support on a per call or per annum basis, or if
you continue to buy our current product, you get free support
for any of our products you may own.

Most of our users seem to understand the plain businsess facts
and accept our policy as a reasonable way to deal with the
problem. If we are to continue development and support of
anything, we must be economically viable. Also, the customers
who buy our current products are entitled to have their dollars
used for supporting them-- not users of the past.

Kenneth Frank