Re: Proposals; Ending 16-bit Product Support

[Daniel Wise <dewise -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Colleagues,

Since I read the list in digest, I tend to chime in rather late.

Proposals.  Amen to John Posada, et al.  Years ago, before computers, we
printed boilerplate and put it on the shelf to use in future proposals.
This was fine for resumes, corporate history, and a few other things that
were slow to change.  But the bulk of the proposal was tailored to respond
as precisely as possible to the RFP.  I believe the push button approach,
unless it is used, as one respondent suggested, for the veryveryvery
preliminary draft, is a recipe for disaster; definitely a pointy-haired-
management approach.

Ending tech support.  This is strictly a personal opinion.  If I were a user
of the 16-bit version of the product and you discontinued tech support, you
can be assured I would be upset, possibly sufficiently upset to avoid buying
the 32-bit version of the product if and when I made the Windows conversion.
Especially if you still have a sizeable number of 16-bit users, I believe
you risk a significant loss of good will by dropping the tech support
completely.  of course, you could always adopt the tactic used by some of
the giants of the industry and just put all tech support calls for the 16-
bit product on hold for so long the caller gives up.  Technically you still
provide tech support even though no one can get it.

Dan Wise
dewise -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com