On Thursday 06 October 2005 22:00, Barry Premeaux wrote:
Carl,
When I ordered the 9.3 Pro upgrade, I got both DVDś and CDś in a decent holder along with the Admin book. If we have to pay the same price for 10.0as the 9.3 Pro upgrade, why can´t we expect to get the same materials?
Barry
Hi Barry, I'm not Novell/SUSE, so this question is really misdirected. But, since you've asked, my perspective is that 10.0 is a completely new product... in essence, newly designed and priced from the ground up. For 30 bucks less, you get one DVD instead of two and a hard copy 'Starter' book of some kind instead of the two hard copy User and Admin Guides. For your comparison to the upgrade, there is one less DVD and the 'Starter' guide is substituted for the Admin Guide. I guess I might look at this differently since I've spent a lot of years on the software publishing side, but a new product is... well, a new product. If your market research tells you that most of the source DVDs you landed in the past never got pulled from their jackets, only gathered dust... - if that research also tells you broadband is pervasive enough now that people can download whatever is "missing" from the box without too much difficulty; friends, relatives, employers, neighbors, coworkers, schools & libraries... whomever/wherever... someone will have the bandwidth they need for an afternoon... - if that research also tells you newcomers to Linux need better "hard copy" help while installing the product; that a special 'starter' book should be written to fulfill that need because the Admin and User guides weren't working so well for that group; that you could drop the price *and* provide such a new book... - if that research led management to believe the price point was too high and inhibiting sales to prospective new Linux users... - if it said it was imperative to keep the *software* quality high but to also meet the lower price point... get my drift? These people know the balancing act that is their business and it is impossible to make money and please absolutely everybody. Time will tell if the approach they've taken is correct. I certainly hope so, because it's a stellar series and the people at Novell/SUSE deserve our support. - Carl