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Text File  |  1994-11-09  |  7KB  |  89 lines
  1. John Soyring Comments on Warp Production and Availability                       
  2. October 27, 1994                                                                
  3.                                                                                 
  4. The following is the body of a letter that was fax'ed earlier this              
  5. week to senior executives of PC companies. It is also being sent                
  6. to others worldwide.                                                            
  7.                                                                                 
  8. Today, I have received many notes stating that they                             
  9. admire that we are being forthright, and they applaud                           
  10. the action IBM has taken to fix even a minor problem.                           
  11. These people have encouraged me to post the body                                
  12. of the letter on public BBS's.                                                  
  13.                                                                                 
  14. I hope that this information helps others understand what                       
  15. happened and what we are doing. We are confident that                           
  16. once people try Warp, they will find it to be a high quality                    
  17. product and a great value.                                                      
  18.                                                                                 
  19. ********************************************************                        
  20.                                                                                 
  21.  Dear ________:                                                                 
  22.                                                                                 
  23.  This week there will be articles or columns in both business                   
  24.  press and trade press publications that may cause you some                     
  25.  degree of concern about the quality of the new OS/2 Warp                       
  26.  product that we announced on October 11. We have also been                     
  27.  told that someone is calling companies in the personal computer                
  28.  industry to tell senior executives that "IBM has stopped production            
  29.  of Warp" and that a "myriad of problems" exist in Warp.                        
  30.                                                                                 
  31.  I would like to share with you exactly what has happened, and                  
  32.  what will be happening.                                                        
  33.                                                                                 
  34.  The bottom line is: the product has successfully completed                     
  35.  all of our quality assurance testing; the product is being                     
  36.  manufactured; we plan to have it available on store shelves                    
  37.  this coming week; and PC manufacturers will start preloading                   
  38.  and shipping to their customers as early as today.                             
  39.                                                                                 
  40.  The final testing of Warp included a massive, public beta test (two            
  41.  cycles) during which tens of thousands of users, ISV's, OEM's, and             
  42.  others tested Warp for months. We then conducted a gamma test on               
  43.  a smaller scale with a representative cross section of users and               
  44.  vendors.  This was all in addition to our internal testing. The final          
  45.  test results were excellent.                                                   
  46.                                                                                 
  47.  Once the gamma test completed, we began manufacturing Warp,                    
  48.  shipping initial shrinkwrap products to members of the press,                  
  49.  consultants and distributing it widely within IBM.                             
  50.                                                                                 
  51.  In our on-going quality testing, we discovered a minor problem. We             
  52.  quickly analyzed the problem and determined the cause. Though this             
  53.  bug would have affected only a small number of users, we decided to            
  54.  stop the manufacturing of Warp and fix the problem now before Warp             
  55.  was widely distributed in reseller channels. We want to ensure that            
  56.  all of our customers have a good experience with the new Warp product.         
  57.                                                                                 
  58.  Our media relations team received the first boxes off the line to              
  59.  send to reviewers, one of whom was Mike Putzer of the  Boston Globe.           
  60.  He experienced the problem and, after we called him with the fix,              
  61.  he decided to write the story of our decision to restart manufacturing         
  62.  to include the fix.  The article appeared in the October 26 issue,             
  63.  with the headline "IBM Halts Warp Production."                                 
  64.                                                                                 
  65.  There is some product already in the distribution channel, but the             
  66.  bulk of manufactured product went internally to IBM.  Those boxes              
  67.  that are in the channel will be immediately replaced with boxes with           
  68.  the new code.  Any customers that have purchased the product, and              
  69.  have the installation problem, will be helped with the simple                  
  70.  correction, with guidance provided by the IBM customer support staff.          
  71.  We will also replace purchased copies, if the customer wishes.                 
  72.                                                                                 
  73.  OS/2 Warp will be initially available in the channel next week and             
  74.  widely available by November 4.  IBM is confident that users will be           
  75.  delighted with the performance and impressive new features of Warp.            
  76.  And we are absolutely committed to delivering the highest quality              
  77.  product, which is why we made the decision to fix the problem now.             
  78.                                                                                 
  79.  I hope this information helps. Please let me know if you would like            
  80.  additional details.                                                            
  81.                                                                                 
  82.  Sincerely,                                                                     
  83.                                                                                 
  84.                                                                                 
  85.  John A. Soyring                                                                
  86.  Division Director                                                              
  87.  IBM Personal Software Products Division                                        
  88.  ************************************************************************       
  89.