From: knyal@ils.nwu.edu (Jarrett Knyal)
Subject: Re: The Emplant Ordeal.
Organization: Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:10:55 GMT

In article <tpang.722084100@sfu.ca> tpang@fraser.sfu.ca (Tsui Ting Debbie Pang)
writes:
>langston@memstvx1.memst.edu (Mark C. Langston) writes:
>>   (here I go again... my mother didn't teach me any better, apparently...)
>>I'm not going to take sides here, but I would like to point out a few things:
>
>I am going to take side then, on the customers who are victims of false
>advertisement. (Or may be those things UU/Jim Drew sent out were not
considered
>advertisements?). No, not that it is not even working now (Emplant), but
>Jim Drew admitted a lot of features pulled because of [you fill in..], but
>people paid on the previous info.
>
>>  1)  UU announced Emplant before it was shipping.  This is not unusual.
>>      (Cases in point: Atari Falcon, Windows NT, etc. etc. etc.)
>
>Yes, and you are right. People are somewhat more paranoid because of
>UU track record with Sybil, for example. That's reputation.
>
>>  2)  People (not everyone) jumped all over Jim when he didn't make his
>>      shipping deadline.  This is a bit strange, because companies regularly
>>      miss announced shipment deadlines.
>
>Only because he always said 'next week', or some at UU said, which they
>KNEW was just not true. How many times of lying can you take before you
>feel insulted with your intelligence?

As far as I'm concerned he could've said "next week" until the end of time,
that's his perogative.  Don't try to tell me everything you've ever done took
exactly as long as you thought it would.

>
>>  3)  Some of these people had a right to jump on Jim, because they had
>>      already paid for the product. 

I totally agree with this point; this is the whole basis for my being upset
about this matter.  It would be like walking into a store and going up to the
counter to buy something  and the clerk says, "O.K., you have to pay for this
in full right now, but you can't take it now,  You have to wait until I decide
to send it to you.

I was, BTW, one of those whose card was billed way early. 

>Even we have not paid real money, but if the net has spent so much bandwidth
>on this topic, which we are all getting excited (or were) because of its
>claimed outstanding features being an everything emulator. A lot of people
>have to pay (or their institution providing the netnews) to read and post
>news. The customers were willing to pay because they were told it was going
>to be shipped 'very soon'.

Oh, c'mon!  How can you demand someone stick to their word because you are
"getting excited".  Nobody is twisting your arm to read this Emplant thread. 
What a dumb thing to say.  It just sounds so childish.
>
>>  4)  People ordered the product sight-unseen, with no authoritative
>>      reviews, first-hand experience, etc.  While this is not unusual, I
>>      wouldn't suggest it to anyone.
>
>Yes, you are absolutely right, I'd not recommand this buying practice too.
>But if I emphasized this a couple months ago, some would say I should be
>more patient and have faith/trust etc.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now either.  I did trust that the product
would come along and perform as promised.  Basically, I trusted them.


>
>But the worth of it will be different. It's more ok if we haven't paid yet,and
>we can see if it's worth that much with its real features. Again, for the
>ones who paid, even getting a fixed version, but not as much feature as UU
>claimed, I still think it's false advertisement. IMHO, the features he pulled
>are some of the most important ones.
>
>>  Although people with Emplants in their hands have some right to complain,
>>it ist as though UU did not ship a product, and is not doing anything to 
>>fix the problems.  If you are really that dissatisfied with the product, send
>>it back for a refund.  
>
>And what are you implying here? Send it back for a refund, but don't bitch
>about it here? Because it's not of public interest to know how bad the user
>feels about the product and the whole thing? I agree UU is doing their job
>to get it to work, but they are SUPPOSED to, what else? It's the repeated
>delay and now non-working product make everybody disappointed and yes,
>dissatisfied. It's is the whole issue. It had generated so much hype.
>Although I am not suggesting any of you to, if I were the one with a non-
>working Emplant now, I'd send it back, and see if I can get a refund or
>not. When it is working in the future, I'll just buy one again. Again,this
>is only my way.

Plus. it costs money and time to send something back.  It's a pain in the ass,
and one that shouldn't be neccessary.