Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
On Mon, 1 Jul 2002 at 20:23:59, Dilwyn Jones wrote: (ref: 003101c22136$9baaae40$e2065cc3@default) Well that was an interesting tirade. I have no intention of going into a lengthy discussion of this in deference to those of you who have become as heartily sick of the whole thing now as I was in trying to deal with Peter in the first place. I do feel, and I apologise in advance here that there are a few inaccuracies that should be stated. I will keep this as brief and blame free as I can. It's obvious there's some unhappiness on both sides of this. The Q40 is dead, long live the Q60. The Q60 is a success, no two ways about that. The entire first batch is almost sold out from what Dennis and Derek told me, so we are probably better off getting all of this off our chests then forgetting about it and see the positives to come out of it, namely that Peter and D D Systems have a good product which seems to be selling well. The loan Q60 I had from DD for a while has now gone back to them and I shall miss it. Brilliant piece of kit. Although I didn't get time to use it as much as I'd have liked while it was here, I did use it enough to know that it never once crashed (apart from my programming mistakes), was wonderfully fast to use and had some nice software on it - preinstalled commercial quality software being a bit of a new idea on QL-compatibles. I realise I'm changing the topic here a bit, but please believe me, whatever may have happened between you in Q40 days, the Q60 deserves to do well (I can't see how it can fail) because as far as I can see the concept is good, and between them Peter and DD seem to have such a good product on their hands. Accordingly, by all means get this off your chests lads, but don't forget also that the Q60 is such a wonderful system when you actually get to use it! The Q40 is OK too. Systems that worked did work well and did not crash. ... and of course was very fast as well. -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tonysurname.demon.co.uk http://www.firshman.demon.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG
Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 03:07:48PM +0100, Norman Dunbar wrote: PS. Got UQLX working on Mandrake 8.2 - yippee ! The colour scheme seems to be a bit wonky, might be Mandrake or KDE, maybe not - all I get is yellow, magenta, cyan, red and black - regardless of mode 4 or 8. :o( interesting.. send me the output of 'qm -v 6' and 'xdpyinfo'. As a quick fix you can try using some other screen depth for X (like startx -- -bpp 8). Richard
RE: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
Cheers Richard. I'll do that when I get a chance at home. Regards, Norman. - Norman Dunbar Database/Unix administrator Lynx Financial Systems Ltd. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 0113 289 6265 Fax: 0113 289 3146 URL: http://www.Lynx-FS.com - -Original Message- From: Richard Zidlicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 10:17 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 03:07:48PM +0100, Norman Dunbar wrote: PS. Got UQLX working on Mandrake 8.2 - yippee ! The colour scheme seems to be a bit wonky, might be Mandrake or KDE, maybe not - all I get is yellow, magenta, cyan, red and black - regardless of mode 4 or 8. :o( interesting.. send me the output of 'qm -v 6' and 'xdpyinfo'. As a quick fix you can try using some other screen depth for X (like startx -- -bpp 8). Richard This email is intended only for the use of the addressees named above and may be confidential or legally privileged. If you are not an addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in it, nor copy it, nor inform any person other than Lynx Financial Systems or the addressees of its existence or contents. If you have received this email and are not a named addressee, please delete it and notify the Lynx Financial Systems IT Department on 0113 2892990.
Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 at 23:19:06, Roy Wood wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Well that was an interesting tirade. I have no intention of going into a lengthy discussion of this in deference to those of you who have become as heartily sick of the whole thing now as I was in trying to deal with Peter in the first place. I do feel, and I apologise in advance here that there are a few inaccuracies that should be stated. I will keep this as brief and blame free as I can. I too hesitate to join this, but I can't see I can avoid it. In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Peter Graf [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I will not explain here all the lengthy details how much effort and prefinancing it required until I could find any commitment from established QL traders in the production. I found only vague forms of interest, nothing I could count on, although I had written software to show that the hardware works, and several operating systems were under construction. Suddenly after Tony Tebby had already finished a running SMSQ/E, financed by me, at my own risk, and Tony Tebby expressed his enthusiasm for my development, I had the surprise to read in the public, that Qbranch and TF Services had made a decision towards Q40 production. I am puzzled by this. Right up to the point of my production decision, Peter and I were negotiating by email. Quite a few times I wanted to pull out, but Roy kept me on the hook. I don't know if Peter ever knew this. QUOTE (23 Aug 98 email from PG to me) Roy Wood has signaled he is willing to help me organizing the production, but I fear this could become a heavy burden for him because of his lack of hardware knowledge. It could also become a bit difficult for me, if I am involved in explaining hardware production issues, looking for the right components, testing, doing repairs and so on. Now here comes my idea: Why not ask Tony Firshman if he is interested in producing the Q40? Obviously this would also mean the right to sell it. I have not talked to Roy about this idea yet, because I want to see if you are interested at all. If your answer is Yes, I would like to talk to him first before we go into the details. ENDQUOTE The decision between Roy, Peter and I came after long and protracted discussions between me and Peter following this initial email. Up to then I knew nothing about the Q40, and had not even seen it or Peter, other than from a distance at Eindhoven. There had never been any private arrangements with Roy up to this point. I expressed directly to Peter at an Eindhoven meeting, long before any mention of development of SMSQ/E for the Q40, my wish to sell the machine for him. My offer was, if I recall correctly (and it was a long time ago) to sell the finished working boards. I would never have offered to make them because I lack the knowledge and experience to do so. It was Stuart Honeyball, who had been looking at the boards for Peter, who suggested that I would build them and finance the whole deal. I was informed of this at an Indian restaurant prior to a QL show in Nottingham. Those present included Jochen, Tony Firshman, and DD who were organising the show. It was Tony who came up to me and said 'Did you know that you were financing and building the Q40 - Stuart says it should only cost around 10 grand'. I remember this very clearly because it was a bit of a shock. I talked Tony into coming on board because I knew I could not build them. As Roy says it is a long time ago, and I really cannot remember the details at all - at least this part of it. My objective was a coordinated effort to cut costs by finding cheap sources. I estimated, that with quantity discounts for 50 boards, and someone who has access to larger parts distributors, DM 350 costs could be reached. I proposed 70% profit for the trader and DM 150 licensing fee for me, which gives a retail price of DM 745. The license fee was originally supposed to finance my development costs, but back then I already had expenses that could not be covered by this licence fee from 50 boards. I clearly stated that my fee would rise rapidly with higher retail prices because that means less produced units. As a trader, Roy Wood should know that my profit is not turnover (my fee), but turnover less expenses. I am not too sure what this sentence is saying but Tony and I would have been glad to see 70% profit. As it was we could not find parts at a price to match Peter's and we argued for a long time about the costs and end sale price. During the argument Tony said on more than one occasion that he would quit and I had to talk him into staying on board. Cheap sources = 'pulls' i.e. second hand parts. I was very unhappy about using second hand processors and even more unhappy about only getting 20 of them up front I was therefore willing to buy 50 new ones from one of my Super Gold Card sources. This would, at the very least, have guaranteed 50 identical units at the heart of the machine. My negotiating partners proposed a higher
Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
Well that was an interesting tirade. I have no intention of going into a lengthy discussion of this in deference to those of you who have become as heartily sick of the whole thing now as I was in trying to deal with Peter in the first place. I do feel, and I apologise in advance here that there are a few inaccuracies that should be stated. I will keep this as brief and blame free as I can. It's obvious there's some unhappiness on both sides of this. The Q40 is dead, long live the Q60. The Q60 is a success, no two ways about that. The entire first batch is almost sold out from what Dennis and Derek told me, so we are probably better off getting all of this off our chests then forgetting about it and see the positives to come out of it, namely that Peter and D D Systems have a good product which seems to be selling well. The loan Q60 I had from DD for a while has now gone back to them and I shall miss it. Brilliant piece of kit. Although I didn't get time to use it as much as I'd have liked while it was here, I did use it enough to know that it never once crashed (apart from my programming mistakes), was wonderfully fast to use and had some nice software on it - preinstalled commercial quality software being a bit of a new idea on QL-compatibles. I realise I'm changing the topic here a bit, but please believe me, whatever may have happened between you in Q40 days, the Q60 deserves to do well (I can't see how it can fail) because as far as I can see the concept is good, and between them Peter and DD seem to have such a good product on their hands. Accordingly, by all means get this off your chests lads, but don't forget also that the Q60 is such a wonderful system when you actually get to use it! -- Dilwyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/index.html
Re: [ql-users] [OT] Making business with Roy Wood
Well that was an interesting tirade. I have no intention of going into a lengthy discussion of this in deference to those of you who have become as heartily sick of the whole thing now as I was in trying to deal with Peter in the first place. I do feel, and I apologise in advance here that there are a few inaccuracies that should be stated. I will keep this as brief and blame free as I can. In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Peter Graf [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I will not explain here all the lengthy details how much effort and prefinancing it required until I could find any commitment from established QL traders in the production. I found only vague forms of interest, nothing I could count on, although I had written software to show that the hardware works, and several operating systems were under construction. Suddenly after Tony Tebby had already finished a running SMSQ/E, financed by me, at my own risk, and Tony Tebby expressed his enthusiasm for my development, I had the surprise to read in the public, that Qbranch and TF Services had made a decision towards Q40 production. I expressed directly to Peter at an Eindhoven meeting, long before any mention of development of SMSQ/E for the Q40, my wish to sell the machine for him. My offer was, if I recall correctly (and it was a long time ago) to sell the finished working boards. I would never have offered to make them because I lack the knowledge and experience to do so. It was Stuart Honeyball, who had been looking at the boards for Peter, who suggested that I would build them and finance the whole deal. I was informed of this at an Indian restaurant prior to a QL show in Nottingham. Those present included Jochen, Tony Firshman, and DD who were organising the show. It was Tony who came up to me and said 'Did you know that you were financing and building the Q40 - Stuart says it should only cost around 10 grand'. I remember this very clearly because it was a bit of a shock. I talked Tony into coming on board because I knew I could not build them. My objective was a coordinated effort to cut costs by finding cheap sources. I estimated, that with quantity discounts for 50 boards, and someone who has access to larger parts distributors, DM 350 costs could be reached. I proposed 70% profit for the trader and DM 150 licensing fee for me, which gives a retail price of DM 745. The license fee was originally supposed to finance my development costs, but back then I already had expenses that could not be covered by this licence fee from 50 boards. I clearly stated that my fee would rise rapidly with higher retail prices because that means less produced units. As a trader, Roy Wood should know that my profit is not turnover (my fee), but turnover less expenses. I am not too sure what this sentence is saying but Tony and I would have been glad to see 70% profit. As it was we could not find parts at a price to match Peter's and we argued for a long time about the costs and end sale price. During the argument Tony said on more than one occasion that he would quit and I had to talk him into staying on board. Cheap sources = 'pulls' i.e. second hand parts. I was very unhappy about using second hand processors and even more unhappy about only getting 20 of them up front I was therefore willing to buy 50 new ones from one of my Super Gold Card sources. This would, at the very least, have guaranteed 50 identical units at the heart of the machine. My negotiating partners proposed a higher retail price of DM 1050 based on their higher expenses. We clearly stated that we do not agree about the retail price, but without my approval estimated price figures and release dates were already published. Efforts to cut costs were started, and I found cheaper CPU's I think Tony has probably something to say about this. In the end of the negotiation, if I recall, we agreed a price for the unit and I received an email from Peter saying he was 'very happy' we have agreed to take 30 pounds each per unit sold as our profit. Tony probably still has that email. (70% anyone?) Suddenly, despite my cheaper figures, and without my prior knowledge, a purchase of a large number of expensive CPUs was made, that would cause a rise of the retails price beyond my worst apprehensions, without any advantage for the users. I was irritated and I saw more and more lack of coordination. Roy Wood complained, that my involvent in the production was causing long delays and there would be no more cutomers to sell to. Consequently, I let him do the production without my help. I complained that he was constantly arguing about how Tony and I were going to spend our money but we could not have sold the unit at the time because there was not a working operating system for it. Neither SMSQ/E nor QDOS classic were yet in a state to sell to the public. Under the contract with Roy Wood, my obligation was to supply assembly plan, partslist and PCB data. Roy Wood obtained permission to
