From: simon@ivem.ucsd.edu (Simon Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations
Subject: Re: The Emplant Ordeal.
Date: 18 Nov 1992 18:02:56 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego
NNTP-Posting-Host: ivem.ucsd.edu

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.

Features were not pulled.  They had bugs in the software and were disabled.
Big difference!

>>  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?

How do you know if he was lying or not?  For all we know, they may have been
ready to ship "next week", but other problems arose.  This happens all the
time.  I seriously doubt Jim or UU did any lying intentionally and even if
they did, nagging them everyday isn't any better.

>>  3)  Some of these people had a right to jump on Jim, because they had
>>      already paid for the product.  This is odd, and I have no explanation
>>      for Jim charging people when the product was not ready to ship.
>
>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'.

If people didn't post such news, I wouldn't be reading news on usenet.  This is
money well spent.  As far as the early charges, I ask you, did you receive the
product you paid for?  If yes, no need to argue.  If no, just wait.  If it
didn't perform, it's a bug and it will (or should) be corrected.  You didn't
loose anything because you can always get a refund.

>>  5)  UU finally shipped prepaid Emplant orders.  Good for them.
>But what were shipped? If none of them works, what good for them? It's more
>like more frustration IMHO. Not only it is not better than waiting, it is
>a waste of the users' time to try all these things to get it to work, calling
>their BBS, calling them, try diff. config. etc.

Any time someone orders early, you've got a high chance of getting a bum
product.  People didn't have to preorder.  Besides, I think they were shipped
early more because people were nervious of losing their money and so
complained, than UU trying to rip people off.

>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.

What features were pulled?  SCSI?  Disabled because of software bugs.  Hmm...
what else?

Return it if you like, keep it and wait, or please stop posting negative,
sarcastic, posts.  It really doesn't help potential amiga buyers and there
are many corporate "scouts" who read newsgroups who would be shyed away from
ever developing on the Amiga.  I for one was.  Mostly because people expect
every small developer to act like the mega corps who've got gobs of money and
a long standing reputation.  Face it, UU isn't Microsoft.  They are not IBM.
And they will never satisfy the doomsayers of usenet.
Go buy a Falcon!  I saw one in the pet shop the other day.  The DSP sure makes
them sound real!

-- 
*   Simon Lee              *   Microscopy and Imaging Resource          *
*   simon@ivem.ucsd.edu    *   Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscopy *
*   sulee@ucsd.edu         *   UC San Diego, Dept. of Neuroscience      *
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