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- Dear Len,
-
- I forgot to answer your first question of your last letter,
- but luckily the answer fits better here than there. It is possible
- that you heard about V2.0, but only because we didn't finalize our
- number scheme until recently. Probably what you heard about as 2.0
- is really going to be in V1.2. While we are still qualifying the
- "big ticket" applications, the revision numbers will increase after
- the decimal point. Here's what we've released so far and what our
- plans are:
-
- V1.0 the first non-beta version Word 4.0 only
- V1.1 limited printing, but basically same as V1.0
- V1.1.1 diacritical character support (this was a real
- mistake on our part; V1.1.1 was released two weeks
- after V1.1 was released. Our european friends were
- not happy that we forgot to put the support in V1.1,
- so we made V1.1.1 and shipped it to our overseas
- customers)
-
- DEMO-1 While preparing V1.2 for release we found out that we
- could put a demo version on a soon to be made NeXT
- CD ROM. However the deadline is April 22. We took
- time off and put together the demo. It has a couple
- of features that aren't present in V1.1.1. When
- something kills Executor, a "Death Certificate" is
- printed, and the application doesn't go away until
- you say so. This gives people a chance to print a
- screen dump. DEMO-1 is also able to run programs
- directly off of floppy disks (although since it is
- extremely limited, you can't really use this)
-
- V1.2: Is not out yet; illness and the preparation of DEMO-1
- slowed us down a bit. This version will have
- everything mentioned in the previous versions as well
- as:
-
- Excel 3.0a support (costs extra to enable this)
-
- Word 5 support (doesn't cost extra money)
-
- Quicken, MacMoney, Stuffit, Compactor Pro support
- (these don't require extra money)
-
- Complete printing support:
- Circles, Arcs, underlining, etc.
- Proper font metrics used so text aligns nicely
- Printing works from other applications
-
- You will be able to traverse your entire filesystem,
- rather than be limited to "Volumes"
-
- You will be able to start executor by double clicking
- on applications and files
-
- Better packaging (probably exceedingly similar to
- Stone Design's packaging for Create and
- DataPhile)
-
- Better documentation to go in the packaging
-
- Bug fixes for better interaction with GatorBoxes and
- the like
-
- Support for multiple floppy drives
-
- (One thing that was slated to go into V1.2 but isn't
- is direct support for mac formatted hard drives. We
- may support them as read only volumes, but event that
- looks like it may slip)
-
- V1.3: Will take advantage of as much cool stuff in NeXTstep
- 3.0 as we can. We don't have an advance copy of
- NS3.0, so I can't say exactly what will and won't
- work. My understanding is that V1.2 will work under
- NextStep 3.0 without modification.
-
- It's speculation, but apps that we'll be working on
- will include QuarkXPress, Mac Draw Pro,
- Cricket Graph and SimAnt.
-
- more 1.x releases will be made as more applications are
- supported. We'll focus on the "big ticket" apps, whose
- support will bring in more direct revenue, but also listen
- to our customers and try to get out the important "freebies"
-
- V2.0 will have color support. This is probably at least a
- year and a half away.
-
- The upgrade policy is simple: V1.2 will be shipped automatically,
- for free to everyone who purchases V1.2 or an earlier version (so buy
- now, your money will just help us grow faster). After that,
- successive upgrades will be available either for the cost of the
- support for additional "big ticket" apps that you want, or if you
- want an upgrade, but no additional "big ticket" support, it will be
- $20.
-
- --Cliff
-
-