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In a message dated 98-09-17 21:32:41 EDT, you write:
<< be afraid omega, be very afraid, especially
officeofthepresident@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TJ
the sharks are circling >>
There are at least six class actions brought by purchasers of Intuit's Quicken
Versions 5 and 6, which allegedly fail to support dates later than 12/31/1999.
Intuit refuses to remedy the "latent defect" in these versions free of charge
and members must PURCHASE upgraded versions of Quicken if they wish to operate
this software in support of dates beyond 12/31/1999. On July 22, 1998 Intuit
asked the New York court to dismiss the three cases filed in that jurisdiction
as speculative, or in the alternative, for the court to delay its ruling
pending a ruling on Intuit's motion to consolidate all similar pending cases
into a national class action.
Paragon Networks International made a year 2000 compliant upgrade available
for an ADDITIONAL $5,000 fee. A class action was filed 4/1/1998 by 16,000
licensees seeking repayment of their license fees and for unspecified damages.
Symantec Corporation have a couple of class actions filed by purchasers of
Norton Anti-Virus Version 2.0. They claim that this version of the software
will not function properly after 12/31/1999 and that owners of the software
will have to PURCHASE an upgrade version which is Y2K compliant.
All of the above have a couple of things in common:
1. Software that is allegedly not Y2K compliant
2. Vendors that do not want to provide free 'fixes' for those products,
preferring instead to expect the customer to pay for the so-called 'upgrade'.
Other vendors must be watching these cases (and others like them) very
closely.
Is it also possible that, before they decide on their own policy regarding
providing a free patch or selling it as an 'upgrade', they are waiting to see
what precedent is set by the judgements in these cases?
If the courts rule in favor of the defendants and determine that they are
justified in charging a fee for Y2K fixes. Does that mean that Omega won't
HAVE to provide a fix free of charge?
Rgds,
Kim
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