 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group A Beginner's Tale: Part 19 Ron Wilby |
 |
What's happening this month? A revolutionary new method of selling software, and it's Australian too! The sleeping IBM giant stirs and there's a lot of excitement regarding software. Let's go!
Arise, IBM!
Louis Gerstner, the new Chief Executive of IBM, is moving and shaking the world's largest computer company. All us beginners are going to win from this. For some time now we've seen genuine IBM PCs in department stores at very low prices.
Unilocked Software
Here's how we can win some more. A disk arrived on my desk this week carrying the label Uniloc Try Before You Buy Software. This is a radical new idea in software marketing and from IBM! Here's what it's all about.
A tiny Sydney-based company, Uniloc, has patented this try-before-you-buy scheme and the licence to sell has been snapped up (yes, bought for money) by Big Blue (IBM to you). The first Unilocked products are now available. The one I have is Computer Associates "Simply Money," also available is a WordPerfect Presentations disk.
This is how the IBM/Uniloc scheme works. You obtain a disk (or disks) which carry a copy of whatever program you are interested in. These disks are readily available from IBM, WordPerfect, or your friendly computer store. Mine came attached to the cover of a magazine. You pay absolutely nothing for them, they are free! These are not crippled demo disks. They are full working copies, with just two problems. You cannot save your work and you cannot print it. Those functions are "locked out" by the Uniloc technology.
You use the program for as long as you wish. If you like it and want to use those missing functions, a menu encourages you to ring a Unicentre number. When your credit card company has accepted the charge (currently much less than the normal rrp), the operator gives you a registration number which you use to unlock the missing features.
We Get a Bonus
Yes, there's more. You are encouraged to make copies of Unilocked programs and hand them to your friends. If any of them buy, you get "Unipoints," which give you a credit on future purchases, currently 10% of the selling price of the program. Get ten friends in and your copy comes free and all legal too. Ric Richardson, Uniloc inventor, says it's a cheaper and more efficient method of software distribution
and it will combat software piracy. Maybe. There is also a method by which dealers can benefit from the Unipoints system when they hand out free disks.
Uniloc Software
IBM, of course, is pushing hard to get the major software companies to market their programs in this new way. So far Lotus, WordPerfect, Borland and Computer Associates have agreed to give it a go and will publish at least some of their software in Unilocked form. The best news, however, is that IBM itself will make available OS/2 in the same way. I reckon we're in for some fun trying all these upmarket programs we'd never in a million years have the money to buy. I predict a real rush to grab the free disks at first, but if that initial surge doesn't break the sellers' hearts, we may have a much-improved software selling system.
Critical Mass
IBM is trumpeting the five millionth sale of OS/2 (MS-DOS sales are around the fifty million mark). They hope this will represent the "critical mass" point which will get the Applications Developers going with OS/2 versions of their products. Be that as it may, there is evidence of a much greater awareness of OS/2 among computer users generally.
We learn that IBM has a "light" version of OS/2 v2.1, aimed at those SOHO users (you and me) who don't need the plethora of goodies provided by the standard version. Thanks, IBM, we don't need the obligatory 35 MB of disk space and 8 MB of RAM either. Perhaps this version will be the Unilocked one? All of you who have decided, as a result of reading this column, to change to OS/2, wait!
Double Trouble Again
What, again? Yes, still. After losing $160 million over the Stacker patent infringement case, there are more problems for Microsoft. A magazine recently arrived on my desk has a four-page article on the dangers of DoubleSpace. The new DOS version 6.21 being bundled with PCs is DoubleSpace free, but there are still shrink-wrapped copies of version 6.2 around, so watch out!
The problems occur when you run virus detection software, a screen saver or a delete-tracking utility. There are incompatibilities with older software and problems with the order of loading drivers from CONFIG.SYS. Particular device drivers cause trouble. Problems also occur with other DOS 6.2 programs like FASTOPEN and SUBST. You shouldn't use these at all. The high risk of data loss when using third-party disk optimisers (defragmenters) is another difficulty. There is much, much more. Do you really need Doublespace?
More Microsoft Mishaps
The release of Windows NT 3.5, also called Daytona, is likely to be delayed because of the number of bugs in the beta test version. On the other hand, Windows 4.0, aka Chicago, seems to be about ready to go in beta form.
Have you tried to upgrade your Microsoft Powerpoint presentation program? Hold it right there! Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not use the disk Microsoft told you to use! If this advice comes too late for you, maybe you have noticed the sounds of silence from your PC which followed your upgrade attempt.
Powerpoint upgrades came with a letter which instructed users to replace the setup disk with the new one which came with the letter. Using it resulted in the disk starting to upgrade the program, then going to sleep. The difficulty was that the first disk removed the old version of Powerpoint prior to upgrade, whereupon the program found nothing to upgrade and went to sleep. This failed to please the customers, who had neither the new upgraded version, nor their original, which had been wiped out! It is reported that a Microsoft spokesman said this was "an embarrassing blunder." Yes, Mr Gates, it was, rather.
Evidently Microsoft's latest version of FoxPro is battling with dBASE IV compatibility problems. PC Week reported "a surprising number of bugs, errors and crashes" when migrating files from dBASE to FoxPro 2.6. Don't you think we should all feel sorry for Bill Gates, he's had such a bad time lately?
Reprinted from the July 1994 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
