Outbox vs. USPS: How the Post Office Killed Digital Mail

Inside Sources .com ^ | April 28, 2014 | Derek Khanna

[Utilizer]

Baehr and Will Davis, were summoned to Washington for a meeting with the Postmaster General. Evan and Will wondered what it could be, “They must have seen the recent coverage in CNBC, maybe they’ll help our company expand?” Or, “maybe they wanted the traditional photo opportunity and positive media buzz that political actors care so much about. Surely their company made the Post Office look good, right?” But when the Postmaster General came out to meet them, the stark reality became clear, they weren’t interested in a photo-op.

As Evan and Will describe it: “This 30-minute meeting was the end of our business model.”

...

When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the Postmaster General they were joined by the USPS’s General Counsel and Chief of Digital Strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.’” Further, “‘You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.”’

According to Evan, the Chief of Digital Strategy’s comments were even more stark, “[Your market model] will never work anyway. Digital is a fad. It will only work in Europe.”

[Utilizer]

I remember Visicalc. Was not too impressed. But when Lotus 123 came on the scene with its advanced features all tied to its spreadsheet functions I was completely hooked.

I could do things in Lotus that I never even thought could be tied together at all. Nearest equivalent that came close to it was an offering by a company that I still have trouble remembering to this day. Started with a "P". Phoenix, Pythagorus, Pyramid... I dunno.

I just remember that the MS offering was MUCH less capable than what I had originally been working with that I was quite angry that I was forced to move to it instead of what I knew would most likely get the job done.

[Dr. Sivana]

what was the deal with Borland DBase 5.0? . . . virus

Back then, most viruses were spread on Macs by shared floppies! dBase 5 offered no significant upgrade over dBase 4. It was buggy, and I think a new, slightly diferent, file format was introduced. A lot of people had already moved over to the faster Foxbase by the time 5.0 came out. FoxBase was eventually bought by your pals at Microsoft and eventually left to wither (though you can still throw money at Microsoft if you want it, just as you can still buy Paradox from Corel).

[tang-soo]