HTML Rendering in PMMail/2

[David Gaskill]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2000 15:22:30 -0400 (EDT), Ralph Cohen wrote:

> I don't mean that to sound rude, it's just
>that I'm long past being frustrated by the curtain of silence that has
>surrounded PMMail since it was taken over by BSW and I am anxious to
>hear what they have to say.

Ralph, 

I am afraid I can't lift the curtain of silence but this leaked internal memo 
might go some way to explaining its existence. It is not clear who the 
author of this memo is but it is thought that he might be a shareholder in 
BSW. The memo was addressed to "TB" 

The subject of the memo is "Why the hell did we buy this thing?" 

The memo reads: 

Those two lads, Rob and Mike, must have thought all their Christmases 
had come at once when they unloaded PMMail on to us. 

You suggested that although OS/2 is to all intents and purposes dead and 
there was no chance of selling any new copies of the OS/2 version the 
existing users would pay for upgrades thus providing a viable revenue 
stream. 

It now appears that the small but vociferous band of such users would 
indeed pay for such upgrades but that the enhancements they are 
demanding would be uneconomic even if they were each prepared to pay 
$500 for the upgrade. 

It was further suggested that a if we maintained the goodwill of the OS/2 
users when they eventually converted to Windows they would all purchase 
PMMail 2000. From reading the mailing list it is abundantly clear that the 
Pope is more likely to convert to Mormonism than most of the members of 
the mailing list are to convert to Windows. 

Let me now turn to the Windows version of a PMMail. You have been 
unable to cite a single instance of a purchaser of this version who was not 
a previous user of the OS/2 version. The supply of these "heretics" now 
seem to be exhausted and I simply do not see how it will be possible to 
persuade any significant number of Windows users to pay any significant 
sum of money for a mail client when there are several perfectly 
satisfactory mailers available free. 

While I take your point that when OS/2 users are finally driven to the 
conclusion that the operating system is dead they could probably be 
persuaded to change to an other operating system as long as it didn't have 
any connection with Microsoft do we really want to get involved with 
Linux? It appears that the main attraction of this operating system is that it 
is non commercial and appeals to those that like to tinker; those that have 
tried to make money out of it have almost universally failed. 

The biggest danger of of this strategy is that Microsoft, on the off-chance 
that they might be able to make some money out of it, could embrace 
Linux. There would then be absolutely no chance that any of the current to 
users would migrate to it. 

I would strongly suggest that 

(Unfortunately only the first page of the memo was leaked so we do not 
know what strategy was being advocated ...) 

David

David