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Robert,
> Excellent support and service would cost $1,500,000 - $2,000,000 in
> expenses and $4,500,000 - $6,000,000 in opportunity cost yearly.
Counter opinion:
Omega is wasting their money in the wrong areas.
> I can think of several programs that Omega could implement to try
> and provide this level of support, but they all involve getting more
> money from us the users. They could dramatically increase product
> price, they could move from a sales model to a lease model, they
> could charge for user support, they could provide a special level of
> support that includes the support items I listed only to customers
> that pay for the service. My guess is that if Omega tried any of
> the above, there would be some screaming on this list. How much
> would you be willing to pay on a month basis for excellent service?
The Telerate TS users already pay on a monthly basis - however I
don't think that they receive any better support from Telerate than
could be found here on the list. The main point is that most Omega
users don't need someone to hold their hand. Even complex products
like Excel are sold with zero-support. Omega users just need some
intelligent people within Omega that fix bugs and improve the
product. Moving to 32bit is in itself not an improvement.
Furthermore I think that Omega concentrates their efforts in the
wrong areas. The TS5 product is apparently ready apart from the
server part. Telerate users already "enjoy" that version because
their version uses the Telerate server - which is not good.
It is uncomprehensible to me why Omega wastes their time
to write a server when there are already so many good servers on the
market which can be licenced from third parties. Omega tries to
reinvent the wheel.
In general any company should concentrate their efforts where it
strengths are - unless you have got so much money like microsoft
that you need to diversify. In Omega's case this strength would be
the Easy Language engine and the graphics surface. However major
improvements here must still be seen. For example Omega could
improve their language easily by getting proper array and matrix
functions incorporated. They could improve the graphics engine by
offering 3D or other custom charting tools (XY, scatter, plotting
into the future etc.). However very little is happening in this
respect. Quite the opposite: they diversify and develop products
like Optionstation which are offered to their customers half-cooked.
Omega has been extremely lucky that no other company has so far come
along and just emulated the EL parsing engine.
As Bill Cruz's bank accounts are apparently well filled after the IPO
there is a certain danger that he hasn't got enough incentives to really get the
job done there. (I hope I am wrong)
Does anyone remember when Lotus had the best DOS spreadsheet program
or does anyone still use CPM ?
Gerrit Jacobsen
>
> With my above thoughts, I don't mean to condone the worse aspects of
> Omega's interactions with their customers. But I did want to
> provide an alternate interpretation to why they may be happening.
> As I read all the "Omega bashing" I get the sense that folks are
> saying, "If you [Omega] would only listen to us, and do what we say,
> your problems would be solved." And when Omega does not listen (or
> at least does not communicate that they are listening), the
> interpretation is that the people running the company are arrogant
> and don't know how to run a business. However when I see a company
> withdraw customer communication, I think that the people at company
> are overwhelmed (not arrogant). Having been on the inside of
> software projects, it is my guess that Omega is desperately trying
> to ship the new version, which is way late and far over budget (like
> most software projects). Any spare resources that could have gone
> to better support are sucked up in the new effort. Problems that
> should have been solved long ago by the new release hang around as
> the project slips out.
>
> Several suggestions have been made that moving to new products or
> additional product competition will solve the problem. If my above
> assertions are correct, then the problems are inherent in a product
> of TS's complexity and in the pricing model.
>
> == Rob ==
>
>
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