Showcase - SGI please respond!

[Scott Le Grand]

In article <1991Mar22.174054.25110 at odin.corp.sgi.com>,
portuesi at tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) says:
>
>By and large, most of the people from SGI that read this
>newsgroup are members of its engineering community, and
>we are here on a strictly voluntary basis.  We aren't in charge
>of setting policies for marketing, distributing, or supporting
>any of the systems and software that we offer.

This is indeed the real problem.  You guys are stuck between
a rock and a hard place so to speak.  However, could you perhaps
give us an e-mail or snail-mail address where we SHOULD send
our grievances?  Going through sales reps is about as useful as
sticking one's head in a food processor.

>Legal issues aside, it's not as simple as just putting the software
>on sgi.sgi.com and posting a message to this newsgroup.  Showcase
>is an SGI-supported product; this means that the Technical Assistance
>Hotline will have to be prepared to deal with customers who can't
>use FTP, either through their own unfamiliarity with the system,
>(SGI: "Are you on Usenet or Internet?"  Customer: "What does that
>mean?"), unknown system adminstration difficulties, or network
>problems. We will have to service people who can't install the software
>properly because a network error corrupted their copy.  We will have
>to support customers who didn't get a copy of the user documentation
>and call us over issues they might have resolved with the manual.

However, many people out here are paying rather large maintenance
fees anyways to get access to that support line.  A few perks now
and then then could do a lot for customer attitude, which is
something the management there seems to care about less and less..

>This support which is directly linked to FTP distribution does cost
>us money, and also costs other customers in terms of slower
>response time to their concerns.  Distribution through the normal
>sales channels avoids these problems by making sure that everyone
>gets the product in a consistent manner.

So why not give everyone with a decent maintenance contract a surprise
package in the mail?  It'd do wonders...

>If the $100 price tag on the standard distribution bothers you,
>consider that Showcase is comptetive with most of the drawing,
>illustration and presentation packages in the PC and Mac
>worlds, offers better performance than all of them, and costs
>less than they do.  Also consider the support that I mentioned
>above.  And if $100 still bothers you, simply wait for IRIX 4.0
>which will include Showcase as part of the standard software
>distribution.

$100 really isn't very much money, but if you just forked over
$130,000 it seems like a really petty thing to do.  For the past
few years, I have always been forced to design all my graphical
objects on home computers and then port them over.  This is a step
in the right direction for SGI, but I really wish they cared more
about their customers after the sale has been made.

>While I personally have no idea whether or not we can and will
>distribute Showcase via the net (though I personally support the
>idea), I'm not surprised that there hasn't been an answer yet.
>The Showcase people are hard at work adding new features
>to the next release, not adding meetings with marketing,
>sales, support, and legal staff to their schedule.

Again, it's a matter of principle.  SGI's official policy seems to
be "squeeze blood from stones".  The machines are NOT cheap.  Neither
are the maintenance contracts.  We'd like to think we're getting our
moneys's worth.  Since it has ALREADY been released, someone there
should be making a real effort to get it to everybody.  This is
a very important piece of software to get out.  To make it available
on the net, you need only put a disclaimer that it will not be supported
until the release of 4.0.

Scott Le Grand aka sml108 at psuvm.psu.edu