On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, Bradly J. Barton wrote:
> <rant>
> I hate being made to look uninformed in front of customers. I provide custom
> software solutions to them and they look to me to be the expert on all
> things Palm. When they show me the ZDNet article and ask if I know any more,
> I'm left looking like just some pretender off the street. Help us out here,
> Palm. Even us software folks need to know these things so we can inform our
> customers. David - you said before you get asked what the developers want,
> feel free to copy this to those higher ups. Feel free to include my phone
> number as well, I'd love to discuss the lack of information from Palm.
> </rant>
If you were a PC software vendor, would your customers expect you to know
all the details of Intel's newest chip? If you were an auto salesman, do
you think it's reasonable to think that they would know all the specifics
of a new line before it was announced? How about a biotech company?
I guess I don't understand why people expect Palm to release internal
information to *anyone*. If you're a developer, why should you get any
special treatment? I think Palm has done a large part for developers on
stuff that *matters*, like pre-releasing color debug ROMs, etc for us to
test on. They certainly help us out, when it matters.
What do these new devices mean to developers? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch,
zero. They still have the same OS, same RAM, same buttons, same graffiti.
It's mostly a new case.
The only way that you would look like a fool to your customers is by not
handling the situation correctly.
"Hey Mr. Palm Developer, what do you know about the new devices?"
"Well, not much, because they haven't been released yet."
If this type of a dialog bothers you, and makes you think you're being
made a fool of, I think you need to work on saying, "I don't know". (I'm
amazed at how many techie people can't admit they don't know something).
Don't blame Palm for it.
--
Brian Mathis
Direct Edge
http://www.directedge.com
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