🚀 go-pugleaf

For those of you shopping for a page layout program, let this be a
warning. I bought QuarkXPress v1.1 just before v2.0 was released.
Quark did the right thing and sent me 2.0 free of charge. When v2.0a
was available they sold me the update for a very modest fee. At that
time they offered to sell me a service contract for hundreds of
dollars that entitled me to call their technical support number when
necessary. I don't need that kind of help, so I politely declined.

Now v2.1 is ready. But it is bundled with a one-year maintenance
contract and a subscription to their newsletter and it costs $275.
Quark says I must continue buying maintenance year after year to
receive software updates.

I have been quite satisfied with the program, but this kind of
marketing makes me angry. If XPress was really commercial strength
typesetting software I would expect to pay that kind of money for
updates. But it is not that hot yet. So if you are saving your dollars
to plunk down on a new copy of XPress ($499 mail order), save a few
extra hundreds for the maintenance contract.



-- 
Rob Hawkes, Motorola Sector CAD
Mesa, AZ  602-994-6866,  ...!uunet!dover!hawkes