> From: Paul Berkowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On 2/28/01 1:59 PM, "Peter Boisseau" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> And you're right, the core features
>> shouldn't need propping up with third party workarounds, and when Paul says
>> "There was a LOT of information available as to exactly what did and what
>> didn't work between Entourage and Palm when it was released," and that if
>> you missed this you have "only yourself to blame", he is just plain wrong
>> (sorry Paul).
>>
>> If Paul were to step out of his 'Applescript forest' and look at an ordinary
>> person buying software in the street, he might see someone who has no prior
>> knowledge of dedicated email lists like this one. Who, perish the thought,
>> might not even have email! (Please, no fainting, I realise this is a tricky
>> concept). This could be a person who has purchased their first iMac; likes
>> Palm Desktop and, believing the salesman/advertising handout (whatever),
>> expects Entourage to be a product that builds upon - and is better than Palm
>> Desktop. Now in my opinion Entourage has the potential to be just that, but
>> it isn't there yet. It appears that basic problems with Entourage and Palm
>> are giving people fairly major headaches. The kind of problems that mean
>> they need to arm themselves with specialised help groups (this list) and
>> make use of Paul's maverick and unflagging scripting talents.
>
> I just meant that someone who isn't a newborn and has ever bought _anything_
> in their lives, forget software, will usually realize that it's a good idea
> to try to check things out first before buying. Anyone clued up enough to be
> already using a Palm is probably not a brand new, first month, computer
> user. Anyone who has shopped around for Mac software before (scanners,
> removable disk drives, what have you) has probably come upon the usual mac
> consumer places: MacFixit, MacNN, MacWorld. All these places had reports and
> forums for rating and discussing Office 2001 within a week of its release.
> If you had gone to MacFixit any time from early November, you could have
> read about installation problems, crashing, and - yes - Palm synchronization
> troubles. By late November, the false scare stories had mostly been laid to
> rest, and the real problems were being discussed in a focused way. Check out
> MacFixit's "Office 2001 Report" even now - and you'll see. If easy Palm
> synchronization is more important to you than updating Word and Excel and
> the vaunted email features of Entourage, you could have found out at
> MacFixit that people had problems and could have decided to hold off on
> buying it. Or so it seems to me. You could also adopt the view that any v1.0
> of any complex app is not going to be smooth sailing, and just wait for a
> later version to come out.
>
> --
> Paul Berkowitz
Paul, I fear you've missed my point. Everything you say is true *from within
the computer community*, but of little relevance outside. For the millions
of people who are not part of these and other forums, they have a right to
expect software to function as well as any other product. My partner is a
good example. She uses computing for its functionality - word-processing,
spreadsheets and addressbook - period. She has no interest or time to
involve herself further. Nor should she have to. Try telling her after a 14
hour day in the city that she should seek out specialised help groups and
log on to sites like MacFixit and she'll laugh in your face. This is true
for many people. They either don't have the aptitude or lack the
considerable time - the hours needed to keep abreast of these things. Just
as I drive a car, but have not immersed myself in the finer details of its
engine history, or own a telephone but couldn't tell you how it works.
People expect - and have a right to expect, a certain degree of reliability,
and it's a simple fact of life that the early release of most software
consistently falls woefully short of these standards. (This is a general
observation about the whole software industry and ethos, not just
Microsoft).
Peter.
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