Interactive and me - An open letter to ISC.

John G. DeArmond jgd at rsiatl.UUCP
Wed Jul 11 11:30:39 AEST 1990


bill at ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes:

>Which brings up an interesting point for Everex.  When Microport went face
>down SCO (Interactive also, I think) said that they would "upgrade" you for
>a fee.  You sent your money and your boot disk, poof!  A current OS with an
>existing vendor.  My treacherous mind wonders what response Everex would get
>if they did a "give me your tired and poor" number on Interactive, Intel, or
>any other vendor who we're mad at at the moment...

>Wait a minute!  The AT&T license fee has been paid, we gotta send in original
>boot/install diskettes, Everex could legally upgrade us just like SCO and ISC
>did when Microport hit the wall.  I'm interested, is Everex interested?

Bill,

I'd absolutely leap at a chance to replace Interactive AND/OR SCO with
a product whose company understands what support is all about, is able
to produce a package that meets the quality standard of the DOS world from
even as far back as 5 years ago (you know, things that generally work like
they should, documentation that bears some resemblance to what's shipped,
etc), and has learned its lesson from the DOS world regarding COPY 
PROTECTION.  Can you imagine what a review of ISC Unix prepared to DOS 
software standards would look like.  Another Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Particularly this new innovation of ISC's called Copy Protection (or
serialization, if you like.)   I discovered this new feature this week as I 
opened the box on 62 lbs of ISC Unix 2.2.x - everything they make,
we bought.  I installed the package on a Compaq 33 mhz DeskPro.  Said
installation, while a bit more glitzy than 2.0.2, had all the same 
old problems and still required me to whiz around with vi editing this
configuration file or that.  If corporate hogs like NCR can write 
interactive system administration scripts that work, why can't interactive?
After the custom configuration, it has run for a couple of days 
without incident.  I really can't compare the speed with 2.0.2 since I 
never had it on hardware this fast.

The rest of this article is an open letter to ISC - I'm sure one or
more of the ISC minions who read this group can burn a copy for the
marketing geeks to read - that is, if they can configure lp properly.

I am a contract program manager who is currently in charge of a 
project that involves building an automated POS data collection system
on a national basis.  Each store that participates in the program will
have a nice little PC running *nix in a lights-out configuration.
I expect to install about 1000 sites between now and the end of the 
year for pilot testing.  Production rollout will involve perhaps 
10 times this many systems in the first  year.  In other words,
this is a LARGE project and will mean major bucks for selected vendors.

SCO was the client's initial choice for the OS.  It had a lot of 
support within the organization.  Then SCO started their serialization
crap.  It is my policy to do everything within my power to kick out 
vendors who implement such systems.  I sold the concept of trying
a (to them) new product - ISC unix.  Benchmarking showed large 
improvements in disk I/O performance over SCO Xenix.  So we ordered
the 62 lbs of ISC unix in order to build a prototype.  The package 
arrived by barge :-)  We opened it.  We found that damn serialization
card just like the one that got SCO the boot.  Guess what?  ISC is
getting the same boot that SCO did.  We will most likely end up with
an AIX solution as much as I hate IBM.

Hear this ISC - Your serialization and your support policy has cost you
the sale of thousands of copies of your product.  I will NOT allow a 
product around one of my projects where:

a)	I have to set up an accounting system to track what authorization
	key goes with what machine  or

b)	the vendor does not have a support policy such that any of my staff
	can pick up the phone and get a question answered directly and
	without any bullshit about distributor support, time limits or 
	what have you.  
	
The only kind of problems we'd call you about would be those that involve
either poor documentation (many!) or the need for source code.
Any other call would quite frankly be a waste of our time.  We probably
know more operationally about the product than you do and I'll guarantee
we know more than a distributor.  And what we don't know, someone on this
net probably will.  If you can't play the game with the big boys, then 
don't walk out on the field.

If you had a clue as to how your product could be built into large 
projects you would not even think of trying to impose this serialization
scheme on your customers.  Do you REALLY think that a company who 
has perhaps 5 or 10 thousand installations across the nation is going to 
even consider administering such a bureaucratic nightmare.  What's worse
is that you've apparently (if the press can be believed) hidden behind
the lame excuse that "your dealers made you do it".  Where have 
we heard that one before.  Sure, we could (and probably would) negotiate
a special deal.  But to me that would be capitulation.  If you'd worry
more about the important things like installs that work and less about
incidental copying (which in reality is free advertising in discuise),
perhaps your priorities would be more in sync with the marketplace.

IF Everex or Intel or some other company wants to fill the shoes
apparently vacated by SCO and ISC, and can build a quality product, and
can support it (call Wordperfect's 800 number if you need a lesson in
how it's done right.), I'll be the first to pour money in.  Or if Interactive 
were to announce publicly that serialization is really just a bad experiment 
gone wrong, and that they really do intend to fufill their technical support 
obligation, I'd again be interested.  The Fortune 500 market is quite 
a comfortable place to be once you qualify.

Until then, I guess they'll have to make it on Usenet site sales and
onesies, twosies sales through dealers and distributors.  

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC  | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress
Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps.  Both simply
Atlanta, Ga             | provide broker services for their customers.
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd|  - Dr. W Williams |                **I am the NRA**  



More information about the Comp.unix.i386 mailing list