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From: Timothy Reaves <reaves@unix.asb.com>
Subject: Re: support for OS/2
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Eric Clayberg wrote:
--snip--

> 2) His message does highlight there are still some very sincere and
> caring individuals working for PPD. In fact, PPD would be well served to
> hire more folks like him.

     I would very strongly agree with this.


> 
> 3) His message doesn't support your claim that PPD has discontinued
> development of the Mac or OS/2 versions of VisualWorks. In fact, it
> supports the opposite conclusion. It's pretty clear to me that the
> "product" Jim is referring to is VisualWave, *not* VisualWorks. It also
> shows that while discussions did take place concerning dropping Mac and
> OS/2, those discussion never went anywhere and PPD was, in fact, under
> considerable pressure *not* to drop either.

     No, but it does show that PPD HAD taken that stance with us,
officially, until his mesasge to me. It also shows that PPD willfully
commited fraud by entering into a legal contract with us, with ABSOLUTLY
NO intentions of meeting their contractual obligations, from the start!
Who in their right-mind would want to do business with a company like
this?


> 4) The message also highlights a sadly all to common practice in the
> software world - preselling of vaporware. Clearly, it looks like one or
> more individuals in the sales channel decided to presell you a product
> that PPD engineering either did not intend to build or didn't have the
> skills to build. Once it became clear that PPD engineering wasn't going
> to deliver such a product, they had to back pedal. Crap like that
> happens all the time the world over.
> 
> The bottom line is that PPD's past and current OFFICIAL policy is to

     They have made no officaial statement since their last one (on
their web page) that said ALL development would be centered around
Windows. This does not state OS/2 is dropped, but there is a
preponderance of evidence until PPD speaks up.




> support and further develop both the Mac and OS/2 versions of
> VisualWorks (which they have done very recently, in fact, with their
> 2.5.2 release on both platforms). Period. Whether that will remain their
> policy in the future, who knows? I wouldn't want to even guess at that
> one. Heck, if you want to guess about possible future reductions in
> their list of supported platforms, my guess is that they would drop
> support for several of the more obscure, low-volume UNIX variants before
> they would ever drop support for Mac or OS/2 (which still have a
> measurable, albeit slight, effect of their revenue).
> 
> -Eric Clayberg
> President                       mailto:clayberg@smalltalksystems.com
> Smalltalk Systems (StS)         http://www.smalltalksystems.com
> An Instantiations Company       http://www.instantiations.com
