Recently I was discussing with Additive GmbH (Microcal representative in Germany) issues related to fixing bugs in Origin. The story is the following. I reported some number of bugs still in the times of Origin 4.1 and those bugs were not fixed even in Origin 6. When one of the bugs was fixed in ORigin6SR4, I requested a free upgrade. The bug in question is quite serious (pasted vector pictures do not print). Our conversation went up to the following:Me: Microcal has very interesting policy. Instead of fixing the reported bugs
in the patches to the current version, Microcal postponing this business
and fixes bugs reported for versions 4 and 5 only in 6.0SR4! After this you
say to me that fixing the bug for free is not possible because it will
involve the version upgrade. Sorry, I DO NOT NEED version upgrade! I need
you to fix the bugs in our Origin 5 or 4. If U can not do this without
upgrade, it is not my problem.
ADDITIVE: Well, i can't imagine, that anyone will fix some bugs in Word 6.0
or Win95 or giving Win2000 for free. Bringing a new version before fixing
all bugs is may be not the best way, but after a while every software
company has to decide to release or not and some things are fixed at this
point other may be not...
To get upgrades for free, every software-creator offers maintenance
contracts, that contain something like this.
Me: You here refer to Micro$oft, which, as U probably know, blamed by many users for the business practices you described. Sure, the way chosen by Micro$oft (and by Microcal) brings lots of money. Add new features, doesn't matter how buggy they are, announce a new version, and get new portion of money. Of course, fixing the bugs brings no money. :-) I can perfectly understand this position, but your users should know it too. And then don't write that
"I can tell you that Microcal makes every effort to release as bug free a software as possible, deals forthrightly with reported bugs (verifies, evaluates, acknowledges, and fixes), prominently displays work arounds on our Technical Support web page, and provides free software patches that fix most consequential bugs." -- Gary Lane//Origin Forum
As for M$ Word, I do not use it :-) In particular because of the problems outlined above. I use TeX/LaTeX instead -- a solution which works much better for scientific publishing and it is FREE!
Conclusions:
1. Bugs which you report today, will be fixed in Origin 8SR4 in the best case.
2. Releasing new version brings money.
3. Fixing bugs brings no money.
3. Do as MS does. Ever noticed the similarity of names: Micro$soft and Micro¢al?
I think this is too much for overprices software. BTW, visit http://magnet.fsu.edu/~feiguin/scigraphica/
Edward
[This message has been edited by gold (edited 08-14-2000).]
Wanna buy Origin? Read Me First! (How Mictrocal makes money fast)
Posted - 08/14/2000 : 8:00:00 PM
