Executor 2.0/executorv2.0.iso/pc/dos/extra/docs/maillist/text/archive.96/text5796.txt

Text File | 1996-07-25 | 5.2 KB | 127 lines

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From: Clifford T. Matthews <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.emulators.mac.executor
Subject: Re: Ready for Release?!?!?!
Date: 28 Apr 1996 07:49:52 -0600
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In-reply-to: Kai Cherry's message of Sat, 20 Apr 1996 19:29:20 -0400
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>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Cherry <[e-mail]> writes:
In article <[e-mail]> Kai Cherry <[e-mail]> writes:


    Kai> I want to start by saying I COMMEND THE EXECUTOR effort. A
    Kai> lot. However, at $300 Executor has a *serious* productivity
    Kai> hole: weak font support.

Executor is currently $49 for students and educators and $99 for
everyone else.  When Executor 2 ships it will be $249 *suggested
retail price* which means mail order places may well carry it for
closer to $135.

    Kai> Now, I don't know who Ardi is tageting with this software,
    Kai> but I'll tell you what: Without real printing and font
    Kai> support (forget network...for now) I cannot think of one
    Kai> company (YES, I asked several, both Mac, Pc and Mixed) that

That's fine.  We know many.  We only need to sell 5,000 copies of
Executor 2 in order to have a sufficient development budget to get A
LOT of things fixed under Executor.  That's a very small number.

    Kai> would buy it. They've seen it, they understand what it's
    Kai> meant to do, but the same thing kept comming up: What about
    Kai> fonts? How do we print?

Other people say:

    What about networking?

    What about serial ports?

    What about Word 6?

    ... etc.

The point is that we don't need to sell 100,000 copies of Executor to
dramatically expand the development effort, so, as long as there are
some people who find it useful without the above, it makes sense to
package it up and sell it now.  It will be much easier for us to sell
Executor as a shrink-wrapped CD-ROM than to sell it as a couple of
floppies.  That's largely all we're talking about here; just cleaning
up the packaging.  Work will continue on Executor after it's a
packaged product, in fact work will continue at a dramatically
improved pace thereafter.

    Kai> I think that Ardi should REALLY think about this. A

Believe it or not, we actually to spend a lot of time thinking about
marketing.  ARDI is not a lark; it is a serious commercial effort.
While you maintain that printing and font support are the crux, others
will maintain that internet connectivity or quicktime is the crux.  It
doesn't matter; there are too few ARDI engineers for us to support
everything so the solution is to hire more engineers.  Even if we
don't sell *any* extra copies of Executor 2, we'll still have an
awesome demonstration CD-ROM that we can send all around Apple and the
computer magazines and get some more press.

    Kai> lot. However, from the recent tone of [e-mail]'s posts, I
    Kai> don't think they are *really listening* anymore...but I'm

Listening, yes.  Agreeing with, no.

    Kai> telling you, in pro shops where we'd love to be able to put
    Kai> The Suite (Pgemaker, Illy 5/6, Freehand 4/5, QuarkXpress3.3x)
    Kai> on a PC (save on hardware, and it would be *perfect* if a Mac
    Kai> goes down) it would be like, as my mentor used to say,
    Kai> "Breast on Trees": Nice to look at, but what do you do with
    Kai> it?

Executor that can run everything will make a *lot* of money.  That's
our goal.  However, the best way to get there is to hire more
engineers.  The problem isn't that Executor doesn't have enough
features or compatibility to sell 5,000 copies, the problem is that
nobody's heard of it.  If we want to get press we need to take a
little time out and polish up the Browser, work on our artwork and
manuals, and press a few CDs.  We'll then be able to redouble our
efforts and make progress that much more quickly.

    Kai> If you *know* how to support inits/fonts, it would be real
    Kai> wise to take the extra two months to put this functionality
    Kai> in the shipping product.

No.  I am sorry to be so blunt, but I know a lot more about ARDI's
finances and resource requirements than you do.  If we hire more
engineers then we can do more things simultaneously and hence instead
of just satisfying the people who want better fonts and printing also
work on simultaneously satisfying people who want 32-bit color, better
multitasking and network support.

Furthermore some of the work that we'll do will depend on OS features
that are present under Win32 and OS/2, so you'll have to add the time
to do the native port in to your computation.

    Kai> Anyone else here know what I'm saying? Am I alone in this
    Kai> far-fetched belief?

What you're saying *sounds* good, but it's not.

    Kai> Kai Cherry VP R&D/New Products and Services Ultraplex
    Kai> Internet

--Cliff
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