From: discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: CD ROM: Cheers and Jeers
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:19:01 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego

In article <1992Aug20.171427.23436@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:

>I, too, believe that a good mass-storage device like a CD-ROM is good
>for software distribution.  The problem is that the base is not there
>for this type of distribution, yet (at least on PC-compatibles and Macs).

First, I'd like to say that this is probably the most decent argument I've
heard against a developer distributing product on CD-ROM.  However, no
general-audience developer has distributed a product only on CD-ROM.
Microsoft's audience is developers who need to get a pre-look at the 
up-and-coming operating system.  I conjecture that Microsoft feels that
supporting such developers betters the chances for the success of NT--and
that if the developer can't afford $300 for a CD-ROM drive, chances are
the developer won't be able to affect the initial success of NT anyway.

I would criticize Microsoft if the FINAL version of NT were distributed
only on CD-ROM....

>A diskette drive costs $59, a good CD-ROM drive costs >$500 (if you are
>going to buy one, makes sense to a new technology drive; the older ones,
>including the one MS is selling for $450 are not XA ready, and do not
>read multiple-write CDs [CD's written in >1 pass; new stuff that will be
>important in the future of multi-media]).  So MS is asking folks to

But general-use CD-ROMs are as low as $229 (maybe even lower!).  If you
need one (an OEM'd Sony 535i, with interface card and cable) I've seen
them for sale at that price at MicroDex or Sole Source in San Diego,
California.  These drives work fine.

>pay an extra $450 or so in order to save MS some money, and then to help
>MS make money by making NT more attractive.  

But again, you don't need to buy a drive from MS.  There are other
vendors out there.

>
>There are a couple of mid-ground solutions.  Distribute the developers
>kit on floppies, but give a rebate to folks who recycle them (send them
>back to MS).  Put out updates as patch disks, like the CSD disks
>IBM uses for OS/2 (fewer diskettes).  Another solution is to use a 
>different mass storage medium, one that is more common in the developer
>community - tape drives (they need them to backup those monstrous disk
>drives).

Tape drives are not all that common in the developer community--at least
a "standard" tape drive isn't.  Some companies use QIC-120, some 250,
some use the 8mm, others use DAT... just because professional developers
need to perform backups doesn't mean that they all choose the same
media.

>
>One of the problems here is the way MS handled (mis-handled) this.  Sun,
>which is also pushing the CD medium, did it a bit better.  Sun started
>warning folks 2-3 years ago that it would switch to a CD only distribution.
>Then they made CD-ROMs low-cost add-ons to packages.  With pricing
>incentives and 2-3 years to prepare, most Sun sites were ready for the
>CD only release of Solaris 2.0 for SPARC.  MS should have given more
>advanced warning, and then prepared the community with attractively
>priced CD-ROM drives (again, the one currently offered by MS is not
>current technology and is a bit over-priced for the generation of drives
>it represents).  If MS had done these steps, they would not be so
>vulnerable to criticism.

RIGHT!  I whole-heartedly agree with this!  Microsoft has really 
handled this thing with the warped conception that they ought to support
umpteen different formats for a not-quite-a-product release just because
some of the less significant (ouch!  I fall in this category) developers
can't afford to buy a CD-ROM.  Indeed, they should have charged
$1500 for the NT SDK (ala OS/2 in days long past) and distributed them
on magentic media.  I am sure that developers are willing to pay the 
extra cost for shipping both ways (to return the used media for
recycling)--and that they are willing to accept, say, ten cents on the
dollar for the media rebate (after all, what will Microsoft do with all
the used Diskettes?  Test them, erase them, relabel them, and send 'em
out again--who'll pay for this?).

No, I think it is safe to feel that Microsoft is justified in distributing
its limited release on a media it feels is economical--and one that it's
target "customers" are willing to use.
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy