would like to thank Jim Little for his professional and objective review of our UniMaint 5.0 product in OS/2 e-Zine! ; although the review was less than favorable, it was fair, and we at SofTouch feel that such reporting of problems is beneficial, even essential, to the continued success and prosperity of OS/2. Indeed, this sort of open dialog is what distinguishes the OS/2 community from the endless FUD of the Microsoft world, and we welcome it. Constructive criticism, like that offered by Jim, is positive for an ISV; understand that our objective is, and always has been, to provide you with the functionality, features and quality that you want and need. This simple philosophy explains why SofTouch continues to thrive in the OS/2 environment which has swallowed so many ISVs.

With one exception, the bugs reported by Jim have been resolved with the latest Corrective Service available on our Web site, and the fixes are included with the current code being shipped. Unfortunately, Jim was not basing his review on the latest code. The one major problem remaining, regarding large INI files, is actually a problem in the OS/2 code, one we have been working with IBM since November to resolve (Defect 155755). To summarize what is a rather long story, in June the problem was reported to have been resolved by the development team working on the problem, but the fix quite simply did not work, even on the sample code we provided to replicate the problem. When we reported that fact, we were told to file a new problem report (PMR) and restart the entire process, a process which had taken seven months already! IBM now reports that the problem will be resolved in the next fix pack. For those affected by the problem, you can get on the interested parties list by referencing PMR 1318x,L11. Your support on this matter would be greatly appreciated and WILL make a difference. We can all make OS/2 better by pulling together.

In regards to the UniMaint user interface, we are continually working to make UniMaint as user friendly as possible without denuding the product of its powerful capabilities. We made enormous strides with the 5.0 version of the product, but we recognize we can always improve. As anyone who has developed software can attest, the vision moves faster than the code. It's a private joke in the office that we take the time estimates provided by our development team and multiply it by four to arrive at a realistic release date -- and even then we'll probably be behind schedule! With UniMaint we recognized the fundamental usefulness of the functionality it provides and wanted to get that power into the hands of our customers ASAP to make their life in an OS/2 environment a little easier. Consequently, the user interface has taken a back seat to functionality; but we haven't forgotten the importance of user friendliness, as evidenced by the new Wizards enhancement and Technical Reference improvements of the 5.0 version. We can promise you UniMaint will continue to make significant leaps forward in the area of user friendliness, especially now that we have the essential functionality in place.

We would like to thank our thousands of loyal customers who have supported us and trusted us, and ask you to bear with us as we constantly strive to improve the quality of our service and products. Because the problems reported with UniMaint were not uncovered during beta testing, we are rushing forward with plans to implement new beta procedures which will open the process to a wider variety of machines and environments. This will enable us to deliver even higher quality products that will work flawlessly in virtually all cases. Because, as Jim so astutely noted, no one needs buggy software.

Michael Norton
Technical Director
Workstation Division
SofTouch Systems

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