Re: YEAR 2000 SOLUTIONS CONFERENCE -- CALL FOR PAPERS (long)

Did you hear the news? On Tue, 28 Nov 1995 02:12:33 GMT, our ether buddy weiqigao@crl.com (Weiqi Gao) spaketh thusly: :)Daniel Veditz <daniel@borland.com> wrote: :)>Your incessant ballyhooing of your own product is really annoying. :)>I'm with Roy--dBASE, the prototypical PC database system that has been :)>around 15+ years handles 4-digit years just fine (i.e. up to the :)>year 9999) and does all the date math for you. Having not received your (Mr. Veditz) original post in reply - in e-mail or on the news server - I'll assume Mr. Gao's quote from you is correct and complete. For one, I never said dBase couldn't handle the Year 2000. In all seriousness, I wouldn't know - it's a pain in the butt to use; tried a couple of times to figure out the zero-based gobbledygook for a friend whose company adopted against everyone's wishes and I never used it again. That was enough competitive information anyone ever needs to know to tell them there's a market opportunity for an easier program. :)>If clueless programmers can't manage to make a program that will work :)>past 2000 (and I've seen dBASE programs that wouldn't because they've :)>circumvented our DATE type to save database space) how in the world :)>would your product make any difference? I guess that's the big difference between us and our companies - I'd never call any of *our* customers clueless if they couldn't figure out our product. I'd say that's what the tech support line and manuals are for - to ensure the customer gets the *correct* answer and *correct* method - rather than leave them "clueless." And if we had a number of folk hitting the same brick walls and speed bumps - making the same mistakes over and over again, I'd say that again was our fault and ensure that either the manuals were clearer, the program easier to use and most probably a combination of both. And the other difference is that our program, in many respects more powerful and faster using much less iron, is easier to use - period. :)>The problem in the clip you attached was that the PC's clocks :)>themselves couldn't handle the correct date. How could your :)>vaunted program possibly fix that problem? I guess you don't read everything either, e.g. " The Year 2000 problem could affect every system in the Air Force as well as other systems worldwide. The hardware, software, and firmware may not know how to handle the change in date. And evidence of computer problems attributed to Year 2000 is already occurring." Small sampling from the original. My suggestion is that, in the future, if you want to dovetail the ballyhoo of *your* product onto my ballyhooing of *my* product - and get results - you not refer to your customers as "clueless." => "The sin of Hubris is inevitably and inexorably followed by Nemesis," Up the Organization, Robert Townsend. Best, Mac ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |SCANDINAVIAN PC SYSTEMS, INC "Not high tech, | | Baton Rouge, La = 504-338-9580 not low tech, just | | 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Central M-F the *right* tech!" (R)| |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| |SPCS, Inc. is a Vietnam-era veteran operated small business. Est. 1985| |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| |WWW: http://www.intersurf.com/~spcsinc/ | E-Mail: spcsinc@intersurf.com| |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Snail mail to: SPCS, Inc., P.O. Box 3156, Baton Rouge LA 70821-3156 | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Publishers of: John C. Dvorak's PC Crash Course and Survival Guide(tm)| | SPCS' PC Crash Course and Survival Guide (tm) for Windows | |Computer-based writing aids: Readability(tm) Plus & Corporate Voice(tm)| | SPCS PrimaBase(R) - Windows RDBMS uniquely offering barcode support! | ------------------------------''''''۳'''''------------------------- NOTE: Demo disks on several of our products are available for download at our web site. If you attempt to get to our web site and are unable to access our pages, please let us know by return e-mail ASAP so that we may correct the problem. Thank you for your interest and assistance! DISCLAIMER: If it's business related, heck yes you can believe it - I'm the president of the company! If it's not, consider it just my humble opinion.