WP bye-bye?
18 messages in this thread
I was recently speaking with a highly placed CBM official getting
background (non-attributable) information and he told me a very interesting
story about why Word Perfect decided to drop future enhancements for the
Amiga.
When Word Perfect announced their intentions on showing a very enhanced
version of Word Perfect at AmiExpo last year, they had every intention of
doing so … here's what happened.
WP ported the UNIX version of WP to the Amiga. It was/is very powerful
with lots of features. The problem is that it required 2M of ram and a
hard disk to run. WP worked closely with CBM to try to get the required
memory usage down. They tried to go with overlays but the program just was
not structured to use overlays — needed functions might not be in the
overlay currently loaded. They couldn't get the size down.
In a mood helplessness, more than anything else, WP concluded that there
just aren't enough Amigas out there with a minimum of 2M and a hard disk.
They dropped further Amiga development due to their perception of a market
too small for the hardware configuration that was required.
Is their reading of the market correct? I don't know. I do know that my
machine more than meets their requirments — am I atypical?
I don't know if anything could change their corporate policy at this point.
However, a letter/email writing campaign can't hurt. If you've got the
required hardware and you want an enhanced Word Perfect — WRITE THEM AND
TELL THEM SO! Pete Peterson, executive Vice President of Word Perfect
Corp. is a "fixture" on CompuServe — his user id is 72067,3552 — flood
his mailbox! While this may not change anything it might enlighten them a
bit to know that not all Amiga owners are 512k 500 game players. In your
letters, whether paper or email, be polite but forceful in letting them
know you'd buy their product if it were available.
Good Idea!
– Joe Maulucci – Accadia Electronic Arts – Buffalo, NY
Remember most Amigas are in Europe, where I think 1 meg 2 floppies is the
norm, if not less than that even. As far as North America is concerned I
bet the majority of Amiga users HAVE at least 2 meg of ram and a HD.
Nick
Steve,
done. I just sent a short note to Mr. Peterson informing me of my system
stats (25 MHz A3000, 10 Mb RAM, 105 Mb hard disk) and my desire to upgrade
if a new version is ever released.
Blaq!
Blaq:
I sent a note to Pete saying pretty much the same as you just described,
right after Steve posted his message. Pete replied within a few hours. His
comment was that WPC had really tried to bring an updated version of WP to
the Amiga, but even with CBM's help, the 'tools' and 'links' for the
program were too large, and that it had nothing to do with the resources
(RAM) the user would have at their disposal.
Those comments left me a bit bewildered because I'm not sure what he
meant… and I didn't feel it was my place to 'bug' him about it (I had
just wanted to let my views be known to him… I didn't expect a reply in
the first place).
I did get the impression, that he is one very 'straight-up' kinda guy, with
nothing to hide, and no axe to grind. I also got the impression that if it
were truly feasible for WPC to do a good Amiga port, they would have done
so, and in the future, may still.
Michael
….from the north coast
Charles:
I also sent off an MAIL message to Mr. Peterson. I stated my current
platform (Amiga), and described my usage of Amiga WordPerfect. I
specifically stated that the ability to use WP files on a variety of
computers was important to me, and that by NOT updating the Amiga version
seriously retards that function.
His response was "We do not have the tools necessary to continue Amiga
WordPerfect development" (sic).
Hmmm… I guess that also means 'We have no INTEREST in either developing
the tools in-house, or buying those tools else where..'.
I am not impressed. WP support has always been top drawer with me, and I
will most certainly continue to use it, but the amount of use is going to
decline as time passes, unless I see a REAL upgrade coming down the pike. I
find myself using AmigaTeX for the bigger projects (looks nicer, anyway),
and WP for the down and dirty (and repetetive) stuff.
Charles Conlow – via Whap!
The rumor I heard was that WordPerfect had trouble making SAS/C compile
their program. Sounds strange to me, since no one else seems to have any
trouble with it.
Betty
Betty,
I think that one is probably just a rumor. I remember having a discussion
with WP when it first shipped for the Amiga. It was totally assembly and
the impression they gave was that it would always be assembly. Which is
why they probably found it cost inneffective to port 5.1 to the Amiga.
wmc
Maybe we should get Timm Martin or Ben Williams to help….they seem to do
_very_ well with Amiga Programming! Seriously, I can't believe that it is
plain impossible to make a WP version 5.X for the Amiga…it's too hard???
Gimme a break!
I got the same compile response, then asked if WP5.1 for the Amiga was just
a bad idea or if WP was still developing products for the Amiga. The
response was that WP would still support the current version of WP for the
Amiga.
Since Amiga owners were sent that Trade up notice to buy WP 5.1 for another
computer platform … what else does WP need further to say.
– Joe Maulucci – Accadia Electronic Arts – Buffalo, NY
Joe:
>> …were sent that Trade up notice to buy WP 5.1 for another
>> computer platform… what else does WP need further to say.
What they need to say is "…and here's also $1000.00 so you can purchase
another computer platform to run the MSDOS WP 5.1 __ON__ 🙂
Charles Conlow – via Whap!
..ROFL
– Joe Maulucci – Accadia Electronic Arts – Buffalo, NY
I too have a larger system. I would also like ot know how many machines
are souped up video games vrs machines with HD and a couple of Megs of ram.
Steve,
I've got a 3000 with 4M RAM and 85M in addition to my old 1000 with 1.5M
RAM and two lowly floppies. I use WP 5.1 for DOS at work and would LOVE to
have the same functions (particularly STYLES) on the Amiga version. I
guess that I should have bought a "real" computer based on Intel's 486 with
16M RAM and 100M of disk space and a VGA monitor with video-speedup board
so that I could use a "REAL" OS and GUI like MS-DOS and WINDOWS :-). That
way I still couldn't use WP 5.1 because I couldn't afford it after buying
all of the hardware necessary to start to approach what I have now. I'll
stick it out with what I've got and "Buy Amiga!"
Garry Lingle
I just received a letter from WP , staying that there is not MORE
development done on the Amiga *PERIOD*. although they will continue to
support 4.1 for current users.
-Ed
Well I guess WP just doesn't want our money … what a strange way of doing
business. I also sent a EMAIL to Pete Peterson, WP/VP, and got the same.
They'll support 4.1, but no new programming will be developed for the
Amiga. Well, it's time to look for another word processor.
I just ordered Final Copy from SoftWood, they have a special going on for
Proper Grammar owners, satisfaction quaranteed.
– Joe Maulucci – Accadia Electronic Arts – Buffalo, NY
Joe – we just got Final Copy in here for the office people… and I have to
say that it is (a) very fast, (b) produces excellent quality output, (c) is
probably the best-looking word processor I've seen on the Amiga to date,
(d) was reasonably priced and (e) seems to be completely bug-free so far.
Altogether an excellent product.
As for WP – I've always had my doubts if they ever did ANY development for
the Amiga. :^)
–Ben
Thanks for the info. I too have a machine that more than meets the
specs–3 M of ram and a 62 or so M hard drive.