All the views expressed in this message represent the opinion of L-Soft
international, Inc. ("L-Soft").
On Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:40:02 -0500 Jim Conklin
<[log in to unmask]> said:
>L-Soft has published its development plan which indicates that its first
>Unix product is probably at least a year away, behind a VMS and Windows
>NT version in priority, and its price is unknown.
I must take public objection at this incredible piece of misinformation.
I can only hope that it was an accident, and that CREN will promptly send
an apology to all the recipients of the original message.
L-Soft's plans for unix (and VMS/NT) were made public in August, 1993.
Over a hundred people have asked L-Soft for a copy and can testify to its
contents. A printout was handed out to CREN's President, Executive
Director and to Jim Conklin in September 1st, 1993, during a meeting in
Copenhagen with the EARN Executive. Slides with a condensed version of
that information were shown during the meeting.
The availability date for the first unix version is "early 1Q95". That is
not "probably at least a year away", but about a month later than CREN's
ListProc plan. "Probably at least a year away" would means "March 1995 or
even later", ie 2Q95.
The unix version is not behind the NT version in priority. The NT version
has the lowest priority, and is not expected before 4Q95. Please refer to
the charts in the August plan.
The first VMS version is expected 4Q94. In general, the VMS version is a
month to a quarter early, as better debugging tools are available for
VMS. Since most of the code is shared between the 4 versions, it is
simply more cost-effective for us to release the VMS version first and
take advantage of the powerful VMS debugger to solve most of the
problems. This lets us solve problems faster and deliver working code to
our customers sooner.
The fact that the price is unknown should not be surprising, given that
the product has not been announced. It is customary in the computing
industry to publish prices along with the formal product announcement. It
is unusual for products to be announced more than 6 months before the
release date. In fact, it is a dangerous practice to announce products
one year or more in advance. You only need to open a PC magazine to see
how many lawyers are making a living out of these early announcements.
CREN did not approach L-Soft to attempt to negotiate a collective license
for the future unix product. The EARN Association successfully negotiated
an agreement last July that will grant them unlimited access to the VMS
version, when it becomes available. Thus, there is a clear precedent
showing that L-Soft is not in principle unwilling to negotiate such
agreements.
>We had hoped to include LISTSERV TCP/IP in our agreement with L-Soft but
>L-Soft has chosen to make it a separate product requiring a new license
>and the cost of that license is currently scaled to mainframe rather
>that workstation software prices.
CREN had indeed hoped to include LISTSERV-TCP/IP at a licensing cost of
$0.00 per unit, an offer which we turned down for reasons that I am sure
I do not need to clarify. I must point out that CREN never attempted to
negotiate the purchase of LISTSERV-TCP/IP licenses at a reduced price;
they felt it should have been free, and since it wasn't, they were not
interested in pursuing the issue.
While CREN is of course entitled to its own opinion and judgment
regarding the price of our offerings, I would like to point out that most
of our customers regard LISTSERV's price scale as one order of magnitude
below the costs of typical mainframe software. In fact, considering the
fact that LISTSERV is a server rather than a single-user program, our
prices are in the same range as many popular LAN products for personal
computers. This is a simple fact that anyone can verify by opening a PC
magazine. I have just done that myself and found that our main package,
which includes indefinite right to use plus one year of maintenance for
LISTSERV-TCP/IP and LMail, costs the same as a 250-user license for a
popular brand of LAN servers, and about 10% of the cost of a FORTRAN
compiler on a mid-class mainframe. In fact, L-Soft prices are on the same
order of magnitude as the CREN membership dues that will finance the
"free" unix list manager CREN intends to make available to its
membership. This, too, is a fact that any CREN member can check by
comparing his CREN membership dues with our price list.
>The acquisition of ListProc and the agreement with L-soft both
>contribute to the goal in the CREN strategic plan of helping CREN
>members migrate from NJE to TCP/IP.
Could you explain how the acquisition of maintenance for LISTSERV-NJE and
the deliberate non-acquisition of a license for LISTSERV-TCP/IP
contributed to the goal in the CREN strategic plan of helping CREN
members migrate from NJE to TCP/IP?
After having read this message three times I have no option but to
consider the possibility that it might have been a deliberate attempt at
misrepresenting L-Soft's offering, views and position. The alternative is
that CREN made a six-figure purchase decision based on totally incorrect
facts, when they have been repeatedly provided with correct information
that was furthermore available to the general public. In particular the
plans for the unix/VMS/NT development were explained to CREN management,
face-to-face and in a meeting that about 10 people attended.
I can only hope that CREN will promptly apologize for this
misrepresentation, and that this will not happen again.
Sincerely,
Eric Thomas
Manager of Design and Development
L-Soft international, Inc.
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