Tue, 30 Aug 1994 09:39:50 EDT

id <[email protected]>; Mon, 29 Aug 94 13:24 EST

with BSMTP id 6545; Mon, 29 Aug 94 19:27:58 EST

FRMOP11.CNUSC.FR (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 9583; Mon, 29 Aug 1994 19:27:58 -0500

Communicating is always useful and it remains the only way to avoid misunderstanding. I did not take your msg as agressive and my answer did not mean to be neither.
> What I meant, in this particular case, was that Cornell
> University generally operates in a competitive, cost/benefit, business
> like way. When I work for them, I have to evaluate in these terms,
> regardless of where my own sympathies lie.
This statement defines very well how we pretend and try to work. And I will add TRANSPARENCY as a fundamental additional criteria. So we should understand each other.

I just know you for the one meeting we got. I do not know about your experience in that field. You never were very communicating about it, nor about your evaluation, nor about potential added-value services in REDID. I respected it because I wanted your work to be prone of pressures (busines like way etc...).

My personal expectative from your evaluation was not to have Cornell as a REDID member (we always do our best to subscribe new comers, but it is more as a solidarity task than anything else), but rather to have an objective and external evaluation of REDID, as it compares to its "competitive" (I should say alternative) option: the network for PUCMM. I was surprised you never asked more question about REDID, but, again I respected it as a style for working based in facts rather than second hand information (that's what I generally do as a consultant).

So, when I got the first feed-back of your evaluation (as an answer to my questions), I read it carefully and was surprised to discover:

1. you have not studied the PUCMM network,
2. you compare REDID with Codemail, apparently, without knowing the deal between REDID and Codemail,
   
3. you made strong cost statements apparently without taking into account the facts,
   
4. based in the previous you diagnosticated a serious "problem" to REDID and offer your services to fix it.

What I did, is, business-wise, inform you that your statements where not based in the facts and I gave you a closer ideas of the facts. Since your evaluation is susceptible to be published externally, I tried profesionnaly to avoid that the wrong picture of REDID would be projected outside based in incorrect data. That's why I asked you also about the people who commit the study. As for the cancelling of the account it is not a "bad mood" disposition but solely a business as usual procedure.

Your response is very professional and I thank you for it. It appears now that part of the misunderstanding could be in the out of context manner you offered your first statements. Let me comment on your answer.

> For the very low initial
> traffic expected, perhaps 1 - 3 outgoing messages a week, CODEMAIL
> would be cheaper. I have also made clear in my evaluation that in
> a higher-traffic situation REDID would be much more economical.

Remember than the REDID fee is for institution and that the additional fee for additional user Id is very low (500 pesos per year for universities). So if you have 5 users with 2 outgoing messages per week of an average 5Kbytes per msg you are talking of comparing a yearly 400$ (2500 +5x500 pesos) in the REDID side against a yearly 480$ (2x12x5) 120$ + 360 $ (5x2x5x50/7) for CODEMAIL. In that very low traffic case, REDID is still cheaper!

As a conclusion, Cornell have to be very prudent about the business case and compute very carefully in function of the various parameters (including the natural trend to increase traffic for gaining trained and/or mistakes). Furthermore, is the exercise is for a short period of time, nothing prevent Cornell to negociate a deal with REDID...

> In terms of technical competition, I was referring to the user
> interface. In all honesty, I feel MULBRI is in serious need of major
> upgrading or replacement.
With the same honesty, we share 100% the statement (and told you)!!! MULBRI was a great idea when we had it in 1989. Modesty apart, we may have been the first in that market at the time and kept some advantages til 1991/2. Now there are much better offer in the free market and we stated internally that either we got the money to upgrade in the coming 3 months either we drop it. The history of MULBRI is the sad history of the trouble to get funded to pursue good ideas...

The only reason we have not dropped it in 1993 (when we started being lucid about it) is that MULBRI keep few advantages which could be enhanced with money:
-the multi-linguism
-the style of development where the users decided the changes. My experience with REDID was good: in spite of the known bugs in the software it makes very easy the coming into the net of the dominican users which are generally very low skilled in net and PCs...

> I tried hard to get Rafael Ortiz at UNPHU onto REDID. I thought
> that UNPHU was a member, and that he only needed an additional account.
> He told me he contacted REDID, and was told that the full institutional
> membership fee was required. I guess this discouraged him; he then got on
> CODEMAIL on his own initiative. In fact, he found out about CODEMAIL
> and got on it at a time when I was not aware CODEMAIL was even an option.
UNPHU is a member. Rafael just had to make a phone call to be installed right away and nobody discusses fee withe the end-users. The REDID memberships have only recently been billed (all users have been using REDID for two years totally free and some still are). No harsh action have been made: some REDID institutions (in general the universities) are still using it without paying. The payment is considered more as an act of solidarity than a due bill. I wonder who gave that incorrect information to Rafel: not the officials of REDID who he never contacted. As for the interface, I myself have given copy of Pegasus to REDID users: we are not pushing MULBRI and, at the countrary, we welcome the user who wants to go beyond.

I have discovered in ONAPLAN with an UNPHU guy (Sr Cabral) the same level of DESINFORMATION about REDID: he was told that the REDID installing people never reacted to several calls from ONAPLAN. After checking carefully we locate the person who admits she only called once and that she called a guy who is not working any more for REDID). Some people are very ready to invent the information to justify their acts; if one checked professionaly that do not resist the facts.

> So at this time, regardless of what I suggest, I do not think there
> is any chance that Cornell would join REDID. Because of the much lower
> initial cost, I thought there was some possibility they might get an
> account on CODEMAIL, and I suggested that in my evaluation.
Again, "THE MUST LOWER INITIAL COST" has to be carefully demonstrated in function of the parameters.

> I was a co-founder ( one of 5) of IGC in 1987-1988, and was paid for
> six months work in 1988. I was on the board of directors in 1988-1989,
> and have had no direct connection since. I have friends at Community
> Data Processing, which provides technical support for IGC, including
> Joann Scott.
Why not you told me? There is so many things we'd like to discuss about APC/IGC relationships with FUNREDES...

> I would very much like to be able to say to
> Cornell, now and in the future, that REDID offers the following
> information services: abstracts of current work, news, etc... and that
We are very close to confirm a plan to go full Internet + gopher in a 6 month timeframe. I rather discuss that not by mail... You are still welcome to come and exchange ideas.

Regards,
Daniel
.