His opinions rang true. Trying out WordStar with Osbornes, I’d run across sales reps who couldn’t show me how to make printouts of the letters on the tiny black-and-white screen. Some sales reps were “terminally” dumb. Others were bright and helpful but too busy selling too many machines to pick up the basics of WordStar and other heavy-duty programs. WordStar wasn’t that hard to master, however. I wondered how stores could counsel customers if they couldn’t even train sales reps.
I asked Park about mail-order software.
croPro,” he said, “I told people, ‘Don’t buy by mail. The dealers are the ones who can answer your questions. You have a real, live, 3-D person.’” MicroPro had instructed Park and five colleagues to try to duck the time-consuming questions from businessmen and others using computers and to refer them back to their dealers. And yet Park and the others had actually ended up spending half their time responding to the pleas of “end users.” And many were the customers of mail-order houses.
But now, Park said, some mail-order people were competing not only with low prices but also with technical support; 800 Software had even hired a software guru from the University of California at Davis to evaluate programs it was going to sell and support. I myself had paid $250 for WordStar, or about half the $495 list price; however, after talking to Park, I felt I was in better hands than I would have been at the typical computer stores I’d visited.
I got everything I paid for; 800 didn’t pull any cheap tricks like sending the software without a manual, which, in fact, some mail-order houses may do. This isn’t an endorsement of 800 Software. It shows, though, that at times you can successfully bypass the wretched support and high prices that many stores inflict on software shoppers.
“Save by ordering some software by mail,” advises CPA Micro Report, “but only if the package is easy to install and easy to use. If you’ll need training before you can use it or if the package must be configured for a hard disk, buy through your local dealer. Word processors and spreadsheets are examples of software you can safely buy through the mail. General accounting, client write-up systems and communications software should be purchased through a dealer.”
It’s good advice, basically. Park says few people call him about spreadsheets, that they’re easier to unravel than many programs. So what’s the most trouble? Data bases, sometimes. “But word processors definitely take the cake.
“You’ve got to deal a lot with special features on printers, like boldfacing and underlining and whether the software will let them work right,” Park says. He suggests the obvious—that before buying new software, you find out how it will run with your printer and computer. Of course, as stated earlier, you’ll ideally select your hardware after you’ve chosen your general range of software. Park says most people don’t fully “realize the implications” of the software they’re ordering “because they haven’t thought of it yet.” There’s the old problem, of course. How do you know you’ll like the software until you’ve tried it at leisure? And then you normally can’t get your money back. Before you order by mail, give serious thought to asking someone locally for a “3-D” demonstration.
A very leisurely tryout, in fact, is a good idea no matter how you’re buying, mail or “3-D,” and ideally you’ll have someone with you—a clerk, a secretary, anyone who’ll actually be using the system.
You might even want to bring along your accountant or somebody else working with the information that comes out of your computer system. At the very least, show him the software manual before you buy the program. Don’t take the software seller’s word that the software will keep the IRS or the SEC happy. Instead, trust the accountant or lawyer you use in your business. If he’s uncomfortable with computers, ask him to recommend someone in his profession whom he could work with. You don’t have to fire him. Just get him the backup he’ll need.