From: jacob@bright.net (Jacob Hopkins) Subject: Re: So, what happened to Clark Development Corp. Date: 1997/11/23 Message-ID: <34783042.60651963@nntp.service.ohio-state.edu>#1/1 References: <34771326.333C@email.state.ut.us> <448.1168.620@airgunhq.com> <347826c1.401969842@news.pacific.net.sg> Organization: The Ohio State University Newsgroups: alt.bbs.pcboard Unfortunately, software devolopers don't always possess the best money management skills. (what follows is how I justify cdc's demise, the validity is unknown, and probably pure fiction... and at the very least, should be read only as MHO) PCBoard was "the best," cdc saw the number of new purchasers going down (assumption), and the yearly renewals were probably letting the company do modest development in emerging technologies (PCB/IC and that metaworlds thing). PCB/IC sucked (imo) and was pricey, didn't do all that well. Lost some money. Add to that the last mail add-on for PCB from CDC. I forget when MW was "announced" but it originally was promised to offer the worldgroup client/server interface. Sometime after quite a bit of development was done on it (some people claimed to have had alphas of the c/s mw) this "whole internet thing" emerged as a medium for the masses (opportunity) Time to decide, continue the c/s interface (which galactacomm dominates) or turn MW into a self contained "internet" (bbs that uses internet standards). They made the right choice, but it was almost definatly too late (given the following paragraph) CDC was now entering somone elses game. They had pretty well mastered BBS development. Now they were against the world. CDC's programmers were know faced with a hellatious task. Make a Web/FTP/Mail server. "Make it good, fast and cheap." (those familiar with the quote know you can only pick two). Add to this making it for a foreign (to them) OS (win95/NT). They did a helluva job marketing MW, at least to me. Unfortunately, promises don't compile into executables well. At some point money got tight, and time became even more of an enemy, which resulted in the Alpha test that required little more than the ability for fill out a form and selling (licensing) the source code to pcboard (which in itself should have signalled to all that something was going on) One day they announce they will be moving their offices... about that time I delete my bbs, to rebuild it... I accidenltly delete my 15.3 zip files... go to download them, and notice they are moving... they are moving for quite some time, then one day the telnet no longer connects, the dialups no longer answer, oh well, they had problems moving. Finally one day the announcement comes and many many people near me at that time learn some wonderfull new word combinations. CDC is no more. Oh well, that dashed my hopes of being the first ISP in my hometown, I still could have been, but that would have ment learning linux (which at the time was more than I wanted to tackle) so the board stayed down, and sometime later and ISP came to town. I'd imagine I wasn't the only wanna-be-an-isp to go down the tubes when CDC went out. I always wondered about the Clark Technologies subdivision, I'm guessing it was an attempt to seperate the companies so only one would go down when the money dried up, but it must have been to late, or they knew there probably wouldn't be too many customers staying if the other half got burnt. What hope is there for those with the software... well, somone could go through anonymously upload the softwares to FTPs, effectivly pirating it (probably a bad idea)... another option is to research Utah law into contracts and whatnot, probably a long shot... and finally, at least for PCBoard, maybe somone bought the OEM license (the 5k deal)... as long as you send royalty checks to the defunct company (not that they will cash them)... (note: IANAL)... cynically, I doubt they sold any OEM licenses. I am out of the consumer loop now (being a full time college student, and part time consultant), so I won't say BBSing is dead, but I can't imagine it thriving anymore. It seems to be 'Net or nothing now. (don't reply arguing this, I won't as it is a barely researched observation) Well, I've rambled enough... and if you email me, make sure your reply to is correct, or at least that your message contains a valid email (hint to the guy at netwiz). Jacob jacob@bright.net hopkins.103@osu.edu On Sun, 23 Nov 1997 12:54:20 GMT, KOH@noreply.needed.com wrote: >On Sat, 22 Nov 1997 18:00:00 -0500, jim.henry@airgunhq.com (Jim Henry) >wrote: > >>-> Organization: Utah State Division of Administrative Rules >>-> >>-> I have not been keeping up, and only heard today (11/22) that Clark >>-> Development is out of business. What's the deal? >> >>They disappeared from the map on 5/22/97..... > >Why did Clark Development file for bankrupcy? Wasn't it the World's >most popular BBS software? >Regards >Edmund Koh >Reply to: cw.koh@pacific.net.sg