From: Bill_von_Hagen@TRANSARC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.pen
Subject: Where to GO
Date: 16 Apr 92 23:05:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: transarc.wdvUV6j0Bwwu4MuEB_

I'd just like to relate some of my experiences as someone who is
involved with GO, as an early developer.  First of all, this has
nothing to do with the compay from which I'm sending this message -
it's all about another porject - one that now runs under MWPC.

I was hoping to do some PenPoint development with some friends - GO
has made this impossible.  Their OS is the biggest piece of vapor-ware
that I've ever seen.  As I said, I WAS working with some other people
who WERE investigating Go - read on.  We'd like to develop for
PenPoint, we really would, but it really doesn't seem to be possible.
We've begged and tried.  We've spent lots of money.  GO does not care,
and is uselesss.

The people I'm working with do not have a pad but GO assured us that
this was not a problem - they claimed they'd run on PC hardware.
WRONG and LIES!!! The person we spoke to promised us that the early
release of their developer's kit would run on standard PCs - it did
not. We spent many hundreds of dollar to buy a kit that we could not
run.  We eventually asked what it WOULD run on - they told us that we
had purchased the Beta version, and that they couldn't guarantee us
that the next version would run on anything, but that it would cost us
several hundred dollar more - OH BOY!!  We said that we'd be willing
to buy a PC that it would run on - our marketing contact told us that
he would NOT guarantee that it would run on anything.  We gave up!!!

Go Corp - if our marketing contact was just spectacularly inept,
please send me mail.  Otherwise, we'll just go with MWPC.  It works.
It's available.  We like your concepts, but you seem to have your head
up your ass in terms of actually running your OS on a computer.  Your
dev kit is very expensve, and I have yet to find a machine that it
works on. I finally loaded it on a friend's god-awful ps/2 machine,
but our GO marketing contact told us that he wouldn't guarantee that
the next release would still run on that machine.  Maybe I'm dumb, but
I didn't buy one.  Gee, I wonder why....

The people we've called at your company have been both snide and
evasive.  They promnised to call us back, but they never have (it's
only been weeks and months now - meybe I'm just too optimistic!)
Microsoft is friendly.  We Beta-tested their Pen Environment.  It
worked, GEE, on a PC too - I didn't have to spend $5000 to find an
obscure machine just to runPenPoint on.  Microsoft returned my calls.
Go never has. MWPC runs, and on my 386-SVGA system.  (Big surprise!!!)
Go crashes very quickly.  We've begged GO for help, and our contact
promised to call us back (many times) but never has.  Go Corp - I'm
willing to give you another chance, but please phone home!!!  Your
supposed developers would appreciate knowing if they can ever run your
OS on a standard machine.

If I were advising anyone of a development envioronment to avoid, I
would point at GO Corp's as a spectacular example.  We spent lots of
money on it, and it's useless.  It looks nice, when I finally managed
to find a PC on which it would run, - it was pretty cool then, but
perhasps that was just my euphoria at fibnally being able to run the
OS on Anything!  PenPoint is so spectacularly incompatible that it
truly was worthless to us.  The GO support people were so convinced
of their own eventual domination of the market, that they weren't
willing to talk to me, a mere plebe who was trying to make it happen.
I am scum, and GO Corp told me so.

I know the people who are developing the Infolio, on the other hand -
they're good people, and I believe that their product will work.
uSoft too - their software actually runs on PCs that you can buy
(today, and everything).  The Infolio and uSoft people are smart, and
they're positioned correctly.  Unoless Go learns that their customers
are important, I'd basically say "NO GO!"

Bill

(again:  NOT Transarc, but a pissed-off GO registered developer!!!!!!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.pen