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             VENDINFO -- What's in It for the USER?  
                                                     
           

The end-user of shareware products will see a number of benefits
from the VENDINFO system.  Some of these benefits are indirect --
resulting from improvements in the industry as a whole -- and some
are directly visible to the users.

   o  The use of a single, consistent structure for information
      about shareware and public-domain products will make it much
      easier for users to find specific information about a given
      product.

   o  The human-readable front text in the VENDINFO.DIZ file will
      provide the user a quick summary of the nature of the product,
      as well as contact information for technical support and for
      ordering.  This information can be viewed using ordinary
      text viewers, including BBS in-zip viewers.

   o  The free VendView viewer (March 1994) will provide easy access
      to much more information about each product in a convenient,
      menu-driven manner.  This information includes such things as
      detailed descriptions; required platform; prices and
      registration benefits; contact information for both technical
      support and ordering, and much more.

   o  The VENDINFO record actually SAVES space in the distribution
      package, because it's almost always smaller than the
      VENDOR.DOC, SYSOP.DOC, READ_ME.DOC, and other files it
      replaces.  Thus, average user costs for downloads will be
      slightly reduced.

   o  Users will have increased confidence that they're receiving
      products in the form intended by the authors.  Both the tools
      in the hands of the distributors and the free viewer in the
      hands of the user will be able to test for changes to the
      package, and whether or not those changes are allowed by the
      author.  Packages with missing pieces will at the very least
      be automatically detectable, and should even begin to disappear
      from distribution channels.  The end-user viewer will also be
      able to report whether or not a particular package allows
      distribution by a particular channel.

   o  Automation of major portions of BBS and, especially, vendor
      package handling will reduce distributor costs significantly.
      This can make the entire industry more efficient, enabling
      users to obtain products more economically, and enabling
      smaller, perhaps specialized, distributors to conduct business
      profitably.  The result will be greater user access to
      products, at lower cost.

   o  It is anticipated that the VENDINFO Product Registry will
      eventually allow users, for a small fee, to do on-line searches
      for products satisfying quite detailed needs, including type,
      platform, cost, and many of the other criteria contained in the
      VENDINFO record.
