CompuServe Messages

First off – your previous post may have been better titled "My Beef With Microsoft" versus "Why I Won't Upgrade" As an ex-employee, I can speak to the Windows 95 issue a bit more: From Marketing's perspective, they saw survey after survey, saw report after report from Product Support that showed that of the 50+ users of Windows (3.x), most didn't even *know* when they were behind the upgrade curve. There are a lot of folks out there who don't subscribe to the computer rags, who don't have subscriptions to the on-line services, et cetera, who just didn't know about 3.1, or 3.11 (Win4Workgroups). Microsoft's logic is that if they name their operating system products by year, people will automatically know they're behind the curve. BUT – contrary to you point, that doesn't mean that they'll have an upgrade every year. Also, the stickler I brought up in a recent conversation with some friends who still work there – what do you do in the case of a minor maintenance release? Call it Windows 95-June? Windows 95a? It's silly, and there's a lot of resistance to this new corporate edict from within the Applications groups, who would just as soon have it called Excel 5.0. I basically agree, that the idea's stupid. But I will cede to Microsoft on the point that if you're trying to get everyone firing on the same cylinders, you've got to find some way for them to find out (outside of the PC press) that an upgrade HAS occured. Thom Kozik The Persona Group