On Friday 07 October 2005 00:04, Carl Hartung wrote:
On Thursday 06 October 2005 21:11, Scott Leighton wrote: <snip>
Sorry, but I didn't ask them to drop the price. I was perfectly happy with the $89 price of the Pro package. If they offered a $89 10.0 package, I would have ordered it without hesitation.
This completely misses the point. The product has been redesigned and made less expensive so more people can afford to buy it. My comment was a statement of fact, not fodder for debate about the decision. It is irrelevant that you or I or others on this list might be willing to pay more. We're already converted. Novell/SUSE needs to convert more new users, expand the market, make a profit and grow the business. You slamming the packaging publicly certainly doesn't help in that regard.
And I'll bet there are a lot of people who think that almost $100 U.S. is too much money to charge for an OS that is essentially "free". I'm not saying this position is right, so don't quibble with me over the details, I'm just pointing out the opinion exists and Novell/SUSE has to contend with it.
There are also many people who believe printing bulky manuals on paper is old fashioned and bad for the environment; that doing so adds unnecessary cost to the distribution and is redundant, anyway, since full documentation is provided on the media and available on-line.
<snippage>
You know, I'm sure I will have nice things to say about the software itself when I get around to installing it on my desktop and my laptop.
I'd have respected your opinion a lot more if you'd held off carping until you *did* have some nice things to say. Then your post would have had some balance to it instead of being just a rush-to-post knee jerk reaction.
... I see absolutely nothing inappropriate or wrong about expressing my complete disappointment in the new packaging.
Should I conclude from this "ham fisted" (indelicate) approach that you wouldn't think twice about publicly berating your wife and humiliating her over a small mistake? Please tell me this is not the case...
I'm a paying customer and I truly feel Novell has made a bad decision here, I see no reason to hold back my opinion.
If you're truly a SUSE supporter, why don't you write a thoughtful letter to them privately? Or at least wait until enough shipments have landed that a full spectrum of opinions can be sampled...
If you take that as 'not being nice' or bashing SUSE, then you are reading something into my message that I did not intentionally mean to be there.
How else am I supposed to interpret your "complete disappointment"?
I like SUSE, I have purchased each release since I started with Linux (SUSE 9.0 on) and my comments here are solely intended to hopefully influence Novell to reconsider what I see as some bad decisions on packaging.
Your first post struck me as hasty and ill-timed... it's basically still "launch day" isn't it?... and a lot of people are still looking forward to their pre-orders arriving, right? So, it strikes me as a little mean-spirited of you to rush to post a public criticism before others are in a position to respond. You can't avoid the fact that what you wrote was completely one-sided and you failed to take the lower price into account.
Also, wasn't a detailed product description available at the time you ordered? How could the product you received then be so "completely disappointing"? Did you not read the description?
- Carl
Well said Carl!!
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