Re: Discussion with Eric Damery
- From: "Jerry Neufeld" <jerry.neufeld@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:30:53 -0400
Bill, I think you present a dispassionate and quite realistic picture of
Adam Smith's market place in which Darwin's principle of survival of the
fittest surely applies. The difference between the typical capitalistic
enterprise you describe and our situation is that, GW Micro's excellent
program and reputation notwithstanding, there is little equal competition in
the field to prompt a company like FS to release software they know in
advance will create myriad problems for visually-impaired users. In truth,
it is the very lack of fierce competition that allows the scenarios that are
now emerging. The pressures of which you speak with respect to investors and
financially-minded board members surely do exist. Perhaps the problem, one
not easily resolved, is that the production of a vitally important software
program that means so much to home users and professionals alike has left
the hands of those who benefit from such programs, having become a capital
producing enterprise for those able to see the tiniest of details on a
screen 20 or more feet away. If so, we can expect little empathy from
companies whose job it is to provide a reasonable return on investors'
funds.
Jerry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Powers" <powersradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent:
Monday, April 11, 2005 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: Discussion with Eric Damery
>I think the question of why companies such as FS would release programs
>that
> are bug-ridden has to lie in competition and bottom-lining. Not to say the
> intention is in any way sinister, but if you have a product that is
> competing for market share and you feel confident that it will work for
> the
> most part on most systems and be ahead of your competition, you release it
> before the other guy can release something. The problem is, the deadlines
> become all to important sometimes, just like pleasing stockholders and
> boards of directors. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that
> you
> don't always know what your competition is up to at any one time, just as
> the competition doesn't know your every step, so the game has a lot of
> guesswork involved, a lot of HOPEFUL guesswork. I'm not defending FS's
> eagerness to give out bug-ridden programs, I'd like to see them take a
> little more time between each release to turn up potential bugs and fix
> them
> instead of the "update of the week" approach. It's easy for us to be
> backseat board members and tell them how to run a business, it's quite
> another to run it and keep it out of the red and keep investors happy so
> that you continue to have a cash flow.
>
> That said, in the end, it is you and I that will decide whether FS stays
> on
> top, near the bottom or out of business. If we all migrate to another
> software company, FS would be history, if just some of us do, they stay in
> business but lose market share, and if we all keep buying from them, they
> stay "on top." We can complain all we want and they will try to deal with
> the roar one way or another, but in the end, it's OUR pocketbooks that
> will
> decide the vote. Just look at what happened to the recently defunct
> TeleSensory Systems! They were at one time THE company to buy from, but
> they
> lost out to competition and couldn't get back in the game. (Ashame,
> because
> they were a good company for years.) The deciding vote was our ocketbooks,
> just as now.
>
> I don't think the situation is hopeless, and I hope that FS will show in
> some way that it's really listening to us, because in the end, the
> consumer
> will decide the winners and losers in the game, more so than all the
> discussions we can do here.
>
> I say these things because I want to provide the balance in this
> discussion,
> not defending them but showing that it's not always as easy as it seems. I
> sure wish it were. And I hope for our sakes, that FS will really address
> the
> crop of buggy items in JAWS and fix them.
>
> Bill Powers
>
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