Why upgrade?
Are you still using DOS or Windows 3.1?
Well we know the answer to that already. It's "No". If you were still using DOS or Windows 3.1 then you couldn't be reading this!
Therefore, unless you have only very recently been introduced to personal computing, this means you must have upgraded your computer's Operating System, in other words, its 'Windows' system, at least once and possibly even up to four or five times.
And did you pay for these upgrades?
You might have thought that you had not because the new and upgraded Operating System was already installed on a new replacement PC that you purchased. That simply means you paid for it through the purchase price of the computer. It did not mean it was free.
The same thing applies with Mistral software. If you wish to upgrade your Mistral software installation then you must expect to pay for that upgrade.
Why?
Because writing software does not happen by accident and it does not grow on trees! Someone has to be, and deserves to be, paid to write the upgrade code.
When a car manufacturer brings out a new model of the car you had bought you do not take the old one back and demand that the manufacturer supplies you with a new one for free! The same thing applies to computer programs and yes, just like cars, software also 'wears out'!
Printer manufacturers let me download free 'Patches' whenever their software (printer drivers) need upgrading! So why don't you?
Well before we answer first of all let us just say that it is good that you now realise that printer software effectively 'wears out', when an
Operating System is upgraded for example, so now perhaps you will find it a little more acceptable to learn that every other piece of software, including Mistral's, does too!
Anyway, it isn't all bad news. Mistral values your custom. We regret though that our software is generally far too 'deep' to be upgraded through the simple
application of 'patches'. We must charge for upgrades but as a valued customer you will receive an upgrade discount. Mistral also offers economical
'Corporate Licensee' schemes, available now to everyone, to help mitigate these unavoidable costs. We also reserve the right though
to adjust discounts depending upon the attitude of the customer!
An anecdote from Chris Smith, founding director.
Recently a person from China, posing as a prospect, asked to purchase a licence and
Registration Code to access Mistral’s RAC Application Engineering software suite.
With the condition that we first sent him our Source Code. For the purpose, as he put
it, ‘to ascertain that we had got our sums right’.
I explained to him that to date it has taken our team of qualified engineers and
graduate programmers over one hundred and fifty man years of research and
development to produce the system. We therefore don’t even let anyone know the
precise location of the two old twenty foot shipping containers that we store the
Copyright printouts of the Source Code in, let alone actually see any of it. Even if
he were to provide the trucks to collect and transport them he would we felt be unlikely
to be able to assemble a sufficiently qualified team with sufficient remaining lifespans
to read, interpret and diagnose it all.
We would however be interested in serious offers for the Source Code and supporting data,
stored in both printed copy and digital form (held in our bank's safe), and of course the
inseparable business, along with our customer base from over one hundred countries. For all
of this we might consider starting offers around the knock down price of just six million
US Dollars. Upon receipt of payment we would then offer to throw in shipping of the two
containers, each along with their respective twelve tonne payloads, free of charge to China.
Otherwise please assume that we have already ‘got our sums right’ and also accept
our advice to ‘get a life’!
I'm still waiting for his reply.
Mission statement:
"Bringing the benefits of computerisation to our industry - without the historically associated problems."
The reason printer manufacturers give away free 'patches' for a piece of software that is anyway perhaps less than one ten thousandth as complicated or expensive
to produce as Mistral's system is of course because they want you to continue buying their ink. Ink with a better than 3,000% profit margin!