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The aptly named Omega man, who seems invariably to
represent the company's position, no matter how he
explains his choice of moniker, declared:
>Don't you see? I win by default. You and others can whine and cry and
complain on this list for the next thousand years. And you will have
created nothing, produced nothing, solved no problems, and achieved nothing
through your complaints.
Yup. If defective software and unpunished fraud are your goals,
you win by default. Why anyone would like that result is another
matter, which speaks unflatteringly to your values and judgment.
>It really does not matter whether Omega "owes" you an improved product or
not. You think that they do, I think that they do not. But, either way,
you cannot make them produce it.
That's certainly true, alas. But you're mis-stating the situation.
No one has asked for an "improved product." The critics here
are asking only for a product that lives up to the claims made
for it--not, I repeat, an improved product, but the product they
were sold, as opposed to the one that Omega delivered to them.
Your attempt to restate the argument in terms more favorable
to your position is as invalid as it is transparent.
You asserted that TradeStation buyers have ample time to
check out the product before they're stuck with it, and if they
accept it after this period they should, in essense, take sole
responsibility for unpleasant surprises later. Anyone who has
fumbled with an Omega Research manual knows how bootless
that argument is. It can take weeks to figure out how much
Omega simply doesn't tell you about using their products (as
opposed to hiding information with poor organization and
ludicrously bad indexing--and, yes, I am qualified to judge those
issues.) For many first-time users, any reasonable return period
must have long expired before they can be sure that the many failings
of Omega products represent obvious bugs, rather than their
own inability to figure out how the program is supposed to work.
Not that it should matter. Most of society rejected the principle
of caveat emptor long ago. Your impassioned defense of this
license to steal comes about ninety years too late.
In fact, I suspect most of us would settle happily for a much less
versatile program if only it would do its job reliably. I would have
upgraded from SuperCharts to TradeStation years ago if it were
not utterly clear that TradeStation is untrustworthy in the real world.
(By this, I mean that it should not merely function, but coexist with
other well-behaved software on the same system. Sorry, Omega
fans, but it shouldn't be necessary to install any program on an
unused machine to get it to work.) I have more-or-less settled for
SuperCharts, which sort of works most of the time. However, I have
never removed my ancient version of MetaStock from my old
machine and still use it occasionally when I can't figure a work-
around in SuperCharts. I supplement them both with Excel when
I need something that is beyond the capabilities of either. It's not
convenient, but at least it gets the job done, and I can trust the results.
In all, though, it's just as well that I don't ask much of analysis
software, as I use "systems" only to evaluate ideas for possible
discretionary trading. I can only pity those who actually need
Omega products to deliver a significant fraction of the utility that
Cruz and Company claim for them.
Ah, well. I seem to have let myself get snared in another stupid
flame war. This is one more reason to be pleased that UPS or
FedEx is about to deliver my copy of the latest edition of MetaStock
Professional, which will both introduce me to the world of real-time
software and release me from Omega's sphere of influence.
Before I go, though, one last question: Several messages ago, you
claimed to have held positions here that Omega Research would not
approve. Somehow, I can't remember any. Can you name three?
If so, I'll stop suspecting that your URL, "editorial@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,"
identifies you as the editor of that tedious house magazine Omega
sends out every couple of months.
Owen Davies
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