LOOK you simply do not look a gift horse
in the mouth!
By that I mean we have been given a chance
to have our beloved SC resurrected by a group
of dedicated loyal users, operating on a boot string
budget. They have to cut costs in order
to keep outside investor capitol as an option, in order to
keep SC alive.
Remember why we are here in the first place? Point Control
bought by SDRC bought by
EDS bought by UG all of whom had ONLY the bottom line as their
number one priority
and not the betterment of SC. We were simply left out in
cold after V11.5, to bad so sad
see you later.
SC is not even off the ground and we’re
already whining over a messily $5 or $10 US fee
that will be credited towards any future maintenance or
product updates?
I’ll go on record and state that I’ll gladly pay
that fee out of my own pocket in order to have my
SC fixed up so it can run future Microsoft operating systems
simply because there is NO alterative.
Well there is always MasterCAM, Esprit and EdgdeCAM.
For me SC is what brings home the bacon. How many others in
this group need SC
to make a living?
-----Original Message-----
From: Angelucci
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003
8:34 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [mfg-smartcam] this
mail list
We can create a free discussion list
at yahoogroups
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday,
December 19, 2003 7:17 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
Well its here now ....
But it doesn't just come out of thin air. UGS-PLM is supplying a
server (notice it says sdrc.com) and someone who maintains that
server when there are problems and an adminstator for the list who
maintains that when there are problems, and since they've signed this contract
with me, they don't expect to continue having to do that. They
are expecting that I will take it over. I'm either going to have
to go through some kind of list vendor, or go through my hosting
service, or get a server of my own and then get it set up and move the
accounts over. I haven't tried to figure out all the costs yet but surely
something like $5 or $10 an account would probably cover it.
People have to understand that I'm
not SDRC or EDS. I don't have an IT department already in
place. I don't have a bunch of servers already on hand that I can
put stuff on and extra people to do the work, I didn't already have a
website or an internet connection when I signed the contract and I
don't have a bunch of other product lines that are already generating income.
John and I are bootstrapping this thing up. Once we get things
up and going we may have to assess whether we need to go out and seek
outside capital, but we chose not to go that route to begin with because
we didn't want to have some sort of venture capitalist/return on
investment type person with their fingers in the pie.
Besides as I said, it will
be credited towards any future maintenance or product you get, so you
can think of it as a down payment on that.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday,
December 19, 2003 1:16 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
I agree, can't see how you
can charge for this mailing list, it's already here. Somebody else will start
one up if this one gets taken over and then this fine body of SmartCAM user
will become fragmented.
Maybe MRS should start
another 'official' on-line help group, with a nominal charge for subscribing
but with a guarantee that your query will be answered.
Don't forget, I make a
living supporting SmartCAM, writing macros and code-generators, doing
training and programming but that doesn't stop me giving stuff to the group for
free. How many of you would pay for the stuff I post?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday,
December 19, 2003 2:45 AM
Subject: Re:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
Well, I first bought smartcam
production mill in 1989. I upgraded periodically, and in 98 bought up to
freeform 11.5. All in all, I have about $12,000 invested in
smartcam. Then, I was owner of a 6 man job shop, now I am a
sole owner/operator of my company. I don't particularly want employees
anymore.
I don't use macro's, mostly because
I was never shown how, and I am busy enough as it is to not spend the time
learning. I guess they are great, but I am just a ham handed programmer
that mostly uses the program to do multi-position jobs and small parts.
I am happy that SmartCam is once
again going to progress, however I sure don't need to automatically have a bill
show up for the priviledge of still being on this group list. These guys
are tremedously helpful for the questions I seem to have periodically.
This program does all I want right now, and has for the last 4 years. I
sure don't need a $1200 bill for "maintaining" my old product.
Don't alianate your user base by
starting with charges. I wish you good luck on this project, and I look
forward to seeing future progress.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday,
December 17, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject:
[mfg-smartcam] this mail list
I'm sure some of you were wondering
if I really existed or whether I was just a product of John Gent's imagination.
Its been great to see the response
on this mail list, and I thought the first thing I should share with you
are my thoughts on the list itself.
I've seen a couple questions on
what's going to happen to this list?
Well ... eventually MRS is
going to have to take over responsibility for the list So at the very
least, its going to necessitate a server change at some point. But we'd
like to take it further than that. Currently there are only 333
subscribers to the list and not all of them are even SmartCAM
customers. Even so, that's only a tiny fraction of the number of
people we estimate who are still using SmartCAM in the world today.
What we'd like to do is make it a membership based list that's for active
customers and subscribers and other key SmartCAM community members.
That way we will be able to share more confidential support
information and business planning information with the list than I
feel we currently can give out, given the current
list membership. (I'm sure the gentleman from Gibbs who is
a current member of the list would understand.)
I see membership in the
list being included if you're a part of the 'current' customer
base. That means if you're on active maintenance or
have a current version from MRS that includes
maintenance you would automatically have free membership. If
you were a customer but not active, in other words, you have an
older version and you're not on maintenance, then you could join the list
for a small admin fee. If however you're not really a customer, dealer
or some other trusted member of the community (but say a competitor for
instance) you would not be allowed membership to the list. I
understand that things we publish to the list will eventually get out if
someone wants it bad enough, I just don't want to mail it to them
directly.
I'd like to see the list continue to
carry the kinds of technical discussions and Q&A that it currently does,
but I'd also like to develop it as primary vehicle for delivering company and
product announcements, tech tips, support info, etc. For it to be truly
effective however we need to expand it to include a much larger segment of
the customer base. This can have both positive and negative
effects. It makes for a much larger knowledge pool to tap into, but it
might also have the effect of lowering the standards for communications on the
list.
That leads me to list
etiquette. This list has always operated at a very high
level. If the list membership begins to expand, we would like to count on
the original membership to set an example and help maintain that high level of
integrity. We see the members of this list as probably being the most
representative of the type of customer we want to have and keep.
Surprisingly, when we conducted our survey last year, we discovered there are
still a small number of SmartCAM users who are completely unconnected with
no internet or email at work OR at home. Unfortunately we may have to
leave some of them behind. We aren't going to have the resources to
do onsite visits. We will need to conduct a lot more business (product
and services) over the phone and internet.
Finally, I saw a comment in one of
the earlier responses to 'buy American'. I want to remind
everyone that SmartCAM is a worldwide product, and the membership of this
list reflects that. We all need to remain aware of that as we
post here. Now, having said that, I think I understand the sentiment
behind the statement, so given the global nature
of SmartCAM, I think the phrase 'support a living wage'
conveys that same sentiment and honors the global nature of this forum, and is
something we support here at MRS.
Thanks again for all the encouraging
responses,
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