Re: Software Piracy (WAS: Good/bad docs)

[George Mena <George -dot- Mena -at- ESSTECH -dot- COM>]

So the company that a list member works at excels at reinventing the
wheel.  I can think of better ways to spend my time than by doing that.
:D  If a person doesn't have any confidence in Microsoft documentation,
why use their software?  It's got to be just as bad, if I follow the
logic as presented.  In a world that gives us more choices than the
Wimp-Smell environment (that's Windows-Intel after I've bastardized it),
this logic is confusing at best and just plain illogical at worst.

That's what Macs and SparcStations are for, folks.

Further commentary on this thread is best handled offline. :D

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Engstrom, Douglas D. [SMTP:EngstromDD -at- PHIBRED -dot- COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 1:13 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re: Software Piracy (WAS: Good/bad docs)
>
> George Mena:
>
> This is written in reply to:
>
> ************************
> Reading your post, I do find it amazing the length some companies will
> go to just to save a buck.  For a company to buy enough copies of
> Office
> yet not pay for the user manuals is truly lame of them.  Companies
> like
> this should be hounded out of existence for having such myopic
> management.
> ************************
> Well, no.  I work for one of those companies, and the motivation isn't
> so much saving a buck (though I think we do) as a massive vote of "no
> confidence" in Microsoft's documentation.
>
> For minor upgrades, we home-produce a "What's new?"
> document.  For more significant upgrades, we supplement that with an
> optional, over-lunch demo/Q&A sessions.  For totally new systems, we
> offer training classes, and for new people, there's a nice bunch of
> online tutorials. We'll also pay for third-party training from
> departmental budgets.
>
        [George Mena]  No confidence in the documentation, yet licenses
are purchased for the software. And I'm supposed to understand this.
At what rate of pay? :D

> ************************
> Companies like this not only fail in the long run, they
> also make the lives of their sys admins that much more unbearable
> during
> regular business hours by not letting their employees get up to speed.
> ************************
> Nope. Sorry.  Pioneer Hi-Bred is 72 years young, and we're the people
> you have contend with if you want to be a player in the North American
> agricultural seeds business. (And not insignificant in most other
> parts
> of the world, either.)
>
        [George Mena]  How does this relate to technical writing?


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