RIP Cessna...Skycatcher

On Nov 28, 12:53 pm, Newps wrote:
wrote:
Yeah, but what about the plane itself?

Salesmen/demo pilots are a dime a dozen and easily replaced.

So are LSA manufacturers and that's why Cessna will sell a million of
them. You can quibble over the weight of the plane or where its
components are made but the fact is you know Cessna did their homework
and will kill the competition. Just like with their latest jet, the
Mustang.

Way back in the 80s there was a Word processing program called
Wordperfect. At that time it was the market-leading word processing
software. It was actually inferior to a number of other programs, but
it had really great technical support and lots of people used it
because they needed the support. The Skycatcher strikes me the same
way. It has some real liabilities compared to other LSAs on the
market, but it will have the Cessna network behind it and a lot of
people will probably buy it for that reason.

Eventually Wordperfect lost out in the market to superior products.
Time will tell if this happens to the Skycatcher. I think if Cessna
had really done their homework they would have designed a plane that
was a little more competitive.

Phil

"Phil" wrote in message
...

Eventually Wordperfect lost out in the market to superior products.
Time will tell if this happens to the Skycatcher.

It was purchased and destroyed. Notice how much Microsoft Word looked like
old Wordperfect? Sorta like how Excel looked a lot like the early Windows
versions of Lotus 1-2-3. Buy 'em, make an "update" that turns to product
to total crap and then sell your conspicuously-identical version that
actually works.

Who would do a thing like that?

-c

On Nov 29, 10:02 am, "Gatt" wrote:
"Phil" wrote in message

...

Eventually Wordperfect lost out in the market to superior products.
Time will tell if this happens to the Skycatcher.

It was purchased and destroyed. Notice how much Microsoft Word looked like
old Wordperfect? Sorta like how Excel looked a lot like the early Windows
versions of Lotus 1-2-3. Buy 'em, make an "update" that turns to product
to total crap and then sell your conspicuously-identical version that
actually works.

Who would do a thing like that?

-c

What I remember about Wordperfect was it had no menus. Everything was
based on keyboard commands. There were competing products with much
better user interfaces, but they didn't have the support that
Wordperfect had. Lots of people bought the inferior product because
of the support. I suspect that's what may happen with the Skycatcher.

Phil

Gatt writes:

It was purchased and destroyed.

Actually, the competition improved, but WordPerfect did not.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Gatt writes:

It was purchased and destroyed.

Actually, the competition improved, but WordPerfect did not.


You're an idiot.


Bertie

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .

It was purchased and destroyed.

Actually, the competition improved, but WordPerfect did not.

You're an idiot.

I was a contractor at Netscape when IE4.0 came out. Basically, it looked
just like somebody stole the internal alpha copy of Netscape Communicator.

(After Internet Exploder's release party in San Francisco, they dropped a
giant blue paper-mache-and-chickenwire "e" on the front lawn of Netscape.
Which would add trespassing and littering to theft, except that by noon the
7' Netscape lizard, "Mozilla" was standing on the yard among the smashed
remains of the Microsoft "e".)

In Netscape's case, the competition didn't "improve." They stole
proprietary code and used massive personnel resources to get it to market
before the smaller company. I wouldn't expect people in Europe to
understand how that sort of thing happened in terms of web browsers, word
processors, spreadsheets and other "Microsoft products" that bear striking
resemblances to former competitors.

-c

"Gatt" wrote in
:


"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .

It was purchased and destroyed.

Actually, the competition improved, but WordPerfect did not.

You're an idiot.

I was a contractor at Netscape when IE4.0 came out. Basically, it
looked just like somebody stole the internal alpha copy of Netscape
Communicator.



(After Internet Exploder's release party in San Francisco, they
dropped a giant blue paper-mache-and-chickenwire "e" on the front lawn
of Netscape. Which would add trespassing and littering to theft,
except that by noon the 7' Netscape lizard, "Mozilla" was standing on
the yard among the smashed remains of the Microsoft "e".)

In Netscape's case, the competition didn't "improve." They stole
proprietary code and used massive personnel resources to get it to
market before the smaller company.


Who cares? I use wahtever works best and that's still mozilla for me..

I wouldn't expect people in
Europe to understand how that sort of thing happened in terms of web
browsers, word processors, spreadsheets and other "Microsoft products"
that bear striking resemblances to former competitors.


Yeah, they're still using two tin cans and piecs of string there.


Bertie

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .

In Netscape's case, the competition didn't "improve." They stole
proprietary code and used massive personnel resources to get it to
market before the smaller company.

Who cares? I use wahtever works best and that's still mozilla for me..

That was a dark week. I was there the day they came in and told a bunch of
the engineers that AOL was integrating their software (Instant Messenger),
which was the harbinger. They knew it was a matter of time before AOL
merged with Netscape. It all went downhill from there, which is how there's
Firefox.

'Course, I hear the new Internet Explorer has many of the internal and
external features of Firefox.

I wouldn't expect people in Europe to understand how that sort of thing
happened in terms of web
browsers, word processors, spreadsheets and other "Microsoft products"
that bear striking resemblances to former competitors.

Yeah, they're still using two tin cans and piecs of string there.

Well, more importantly, they don't have exposure to the Silicon Valley or
Seattle scuttlebutt that you find on the West Coast as technology types
shift jobs and interact over time. One time, Netscape and Microsoft shared
an outsourced call center in Oregon under a rule that they couldn't be in
the same room together. Not only were they in the same room, only a cube
wall separated them. I was there as a technical writer. A Netscape
contractor turned on a computer, the circuit-breaker flipped....and Win95
technical support went down.

Stream International lied bigtime to cover that one up, and separated the
teams, but for awhile Netscape tech support could hear Win95 support techs
on the telephone. Some of those guys jumped from one team to the other.

(If that wasn't sleazy enough, they sold a contract to a great
company--Adobe--who required domestic, US-based technical support. So the
calls came into the Oregon office and then auto-forwarded to Nova Scotia or
somewhere. Right now I work with guys who were sent to Canada on a project,
only to learn that they were there to train their replacements. A
non-disclosure agreement prevented them from divulging what was happening to
Adobe.)

-c

"Gatt" wrote in message
...

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .

It was purchased and destroyed.

Actually, the competition improved, but WordPerfect did not.

You're an idiot.

I was a contractor at Netscape when IE4.0 came out. Basically, it looked
just like somebody stole the internal alpha copy of Netscape Communicator.

(After Internet Exploder's release party in San Francisco, they dropped a
giant blue paper-mache-and-chickenwire "e" on the front lawn of Netscape.
Which would add trespassing and littering to theft, except that by noon
the 7' Netscape lizard, "Mozilla" was standing on the yard among the
smashed remains of the Microsoft "e".)

In Netscape's case, the competition didn't "improve." They stole
proprietary code and used massive personnel resources to get it to market
before the smaller company. I wouldn't expect people in Europe to
understand how that sort of thing happened in terms of web browsers, word
processors, spreadsheets and other "Microsoft products" that bear striking
resemblances to former competitors.

Gatt,

Maybe you could verify something for me: I've heard for some time that,
though MS is quick to prosecute piracy and reverse engineering MS stuff,
they expend copious amounts of money reverse engineering competitors
products.

True or trash?

"Matt W. Barrow" wrote in message
...

Maybe you could verify something for me: I've heard for some time that,
though MS is quick to prosecute piracy and reverse engineering MS stuff,
they expend copious amounts of money reverse engineering competitors
products.

True or trash?

Well, my only experience to that end was with Netscape Communicator/Internet
Explorer, but, once you catch a thief you might as well always assume
they're thieves, especially when their other products look so much like,
say, Lotus 1-2-3 (Excel) or Word Perfect (Word.)
I would say that's very accurate.

Microsoft didn't invent the word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail application
or web browser, but they sure sell a lot. I know people who work for
companies under the Microsoft-owned umbrella who don't reverse-engineer
code, but it clearly happens.

-c