On Sun, Aug 6, 2000 Brian Pearce wrote:
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>>Ok, this who NDA thing has me. I feel the consumer has the right to know,
>>yet, I also feel that the company has a right to protect it's information.
>
>Since an NDA generally covers products not yet for sale, any right of the consumer to know (and this is a questionable argument to begin with) is largely irrelevant.
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Think of this,
Why can't computer companies have the same attitude as car companies. I enjoy reading car magazines and I believe they do a very good job serving consumers than computer magazines does.
Future Trends is a common section of the most successful magazines where they pride them selves on informing consumers of new models coming in years to come. Readers know when a given car model is going to be discontinued and a new model introduced. Even new technical features are often discussed with SPY un authorized pictures in most cases. Further more, car magazines are very bold when it comes to saying the good and the bad about a given product. Yet non of these magazines are ever punished by a car company because of revealing information, car companies continue to provide them with test cars and even introduce them to future concept cars.
Now, consider the Computer magazines, they are PR fronts to Computer companies hooting to any thing the parent Computer company is doing or tends to be doing and fearful of their Wrath if they publish un authorized information. Remember the dark years of Apple when Copeland was scraped, All Mac Magazines had nothing but praise for the BeOs, the Be Box adorned MacWorld cover page, all touted the strength or Be OS as the best thing that could ever happen to Apple, (or that is what Apple wanted us to know at that time). Then out of the blue; the Next deal and Steve is back. BeOs is to never be mentioned again in a Mac Magazine. Oh, and had you seen a single magazine (pro Mac or not, attacking Apple for killing the Newton, Mac Addict and MacWorld editors presented that incident as "just news", MacAddict Senior editor at the time even openly applauded the move). Computer magazines are really more like News service at third world countries: have to play to the ruler.
Car magazine editors are good journalists, Computer magazine editors are good salesmen (advertisers).
Dr. Khaled Tewfik
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