From: docw@qdeck.com (Doc Williamson)
Subject: Re: "BYTE" review of DV/X
Organization: Quarterdeck Office Systems, Santa Monica CA
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:45:29 GMT

In article <Jul21.231709.61662@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> kk881595@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu writes:
>I would like to hear any users comments on what they think of the review of
>DV/X in this month's BYTE Magazine.
>
>We have been thinking about buying DV/X since they came out with their
>upgrade offer, but after reading many of the postings in this newsgroup
>have come to the conclusion that it is best to wait.  Many of the issues
>addressed in this newsgroup are very significant, especially the overall
>cost of the product if one wants to write code or port code.
>
>I thought the article was quite misleading and if that was all I had to
>go on, would probably have made a rather expensive mistake.
>
>I really don't understand what Quarterdeck is doing.  In their multi-page
>tear out advertisement the only price they quote is the price of the
>machine they seem to be recommending one run DV/X on: 
>a 25 MHz 386 SX that they say costs under $1000.  Yet to run DV/X
>on a network, and buy their software and FTP's software for retail
>one is paying about $275+$200+$375=$850 or almost the cost of the
>hardware alone.   Now I understand I can get the upgrade and BW-TCP
>for a total of $322.50, but the ~$800 price is what someone
>will first see when they try to find out
>how much DV/X  might cost them to run.  I don't see how that is going
>to make a lot of people love Quarterdeck.
>
>But then I don't understand much software pricing at all.  I like GNU's pricing
>stucture myself.  I don't mind paying money for good stuff and Borland's
>educational prices are about right, and Quarterdeck's used to be.
>
>Somebody at Quarterdeck seems to be listening, so I wonder if they can give
>us the low down.  What bright marketing person decided that pissing off your
>loyal customer base was the best way to make your new product succeed?
>
>Kevin Knappmiller
>Solar Lab
>Colorado State University
>Fort Collins, CO  80523
>(303)491-8215
>kk881595@longs.lance.colostate.edu

Kevin,

Yup, we're listening.  
As regards teh review, I think we can most heartily agree with the parts that 
go: "Technically, it's quite an achievement." and "[compaed to MS Windows and OS/2] None of them can match Desqview/X's networking muscle or its strength in mixed - platform settings."
As regards pricing, well, I'm from the tech support department and that's not really my province.  But I can tell you that the accounting software my wife runs
costs several thousand dollars per module for a single user version, and the one module she runs cost far more than the computer she runs it on, but it IS the BEST available, and she's been very happy with it for years now. But comparing software and hardware prices is completely an apples vs oranges issue.  I certainly don't think it is a valid criticism to complain that you need a multi-thousand dollar computer to run X software you can get for free in a unix version.
Of course, no one set out to upset "loyal users".  We make software for IBM type
PC's, and the majority of them that are networked are networked either via 
Netware or a LAN BIOS type network.  We included support for that.
What we (apparently ) DIDN'T realize was how tremendously important and 
popular a product DVX would be in the Unix world.  There seems to be a 
massive and voracious appetite for this product in that market and while
we certainly expected interest there, it may not have been proportional to
the obvious importance (obvious to us now) of this segment of our market.

You say, "I don't mind paying money for good stuff".  Well DVX IS good
stuff!!  Adn it will get better as we go along.  And I have passed on your entire message to the marketing people to let them know how you feel.

-- Doc Williamson <support@qdeck.com>

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.desqview