RE: post.office 3.0 is coming

Lee Levitt ( Lee.Levitt@software.com )
Sat, 22 Mar 1997 22:09:28 -0500

At 05:52 PM 12/19/96 -0500, Jeff Woods wrote:
>At 05:19 PM 3/20/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>able to change along with it. How many of you have changed *your* pricing
>>in the past 2 years? How many of you were in this business 2 years ago?
>
>Sir, we have been in business for TEN years. We have LOWERED our pricing
>twice in the past five years. We provide unlimited voice support on our
>software products (Telix communications software). I take your comments
>about my business acumen as an insult.

This was not meant as an insult. I was simply pointing out that most of the
people in the ISP business today have not been it very long. This says
nothing about your business acumen, just that as an industry we're still
pretty young. Certainly almost all of the vendors in this business got
started in the past couple of years.

>
>>In addition, our technical support continues to receive lots of positive
>>comments from people like you...and we believe that our tech support
>>department is unbeatable.
>
>Yes, your support people are very good, given the environment that your
>management has placed them, in being unable to actually have and give
>information about fixing serious security holes as the major server people
>do (Microsoft, Netscape, etc, fix security holes within DAYS -- you have YET
>to acknowledge my pleas for a fix to YOUR security holes. If you don't knwo
>about htem, go talk to your famed support staff, notably, Kurt Bell. Ask
>for a copy of my correspondence with him).

Support is only one part of this business, I agree. Their input goes
directly into product planning and development. All of the management teams
sees copies of messages discussing things that we can't help with right
away, such as the spamming problem you and others have had. This is an
industry wide problem, as you know, and we're working hard to fix it for good.

>
>>So what do you think is fair? Where do we draw the line between small ISPs,
>>for whom cash is tight, and larger ISPs, for whom cash is also tight...but
>>they've got a bit more of it...? Should we give our product away to one
>>group, but not to another? Help me with the rationale here...
>
>I bought an unlimited license. Charge me a reasonable UPGRADE fee, but
>leave my license alone. Retroactive pricing changes to your existing
>customer base does nothing but piss off the existing customer base. New
>buyers know what they're getting, and also have the right to expect that the
>entire BASIS of the license won't change either.

You're not the first to say this. I appreciate the input...can't say any
more right now. Please don't consider that an evasion, just that we're
working on it.

>Then I've just given you a lot to ignore. But I am a customer, and a
>displeased one. Flame or not, I hope you take it to heart. You won't stay
>in business ten years like we have without acknowledging customer complaints
>and dealing with them without self-serving praise and rose-colored glasses.
>That Netscape license won't carry you forever.

Again, I appreciate the time you've taken in responding. Your input is
valuable to us, and I hope to be back to you with a more complete, and
useful, response than simply thanking you...

Lee