Delphi Dumps Apple II users (and others)

[rocketusa@delphi.com]

I know, most Apple II people have long since left Delphi and use newer
'puters to do serious Net stuff, but I've remained a member ever since
AOL dumped me and other Apple II users in the early 1990s -- so it's
deja vu all over again for me and a few others.

At least my local library still has a text-based dialup service. But
heck, the first web page I built was with Proterm 3.1 for Apple II and I
loaded it on Delphi's server (I had to go on a Mac to view the page, but
that's another story). Now I make money teaching HTML. Thanks Delphi!

Here's a letter I got in my e-mail today. Turns out after having the
same e-mail address for eight or so years I'm going to have to change
it.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Subject: Important Notice About your Delphi Account

To: All paying Delphi members
From: Rusty Williams, President of Delphi.com, Incorporated

As of November 1, 2000, you will no longer be billed for Delphi's
services. The "legacy services" including premium homepage services,
text-based online service, and Delphi e-mail will be provided on an
unsupported basis. If you're being billed monthly, your last bill will
be for October. If you paid an annual fee you will receive a pro-rated
credit.

We're making these changes in order to focus our development and
marketing efforts on Delphi's free web-based forum services.  With over
2.5 million members, Delphi.com is now one of the top 150 sites on the
web and growing rapidly.

The legacy services may remain accessible, however, there will be no
technical support. You should make arrangements as soon as possible get
an alternative provider -- some options are described at the end of this
message.


Q & A -

(Q) Why is Delphi making these changes?
(A) For the past three years, Delphi has focused on building the best
forum services for people with a standard web browser and internet
connection. The site has grown to more than 2.5 million members and
80,000 active forums. In order to maintain our leadership in this
market, we must focus our efforts on our strengths. The text-based
services,  e-mail services and premium homepage services are all based
on a technical platform that cannot be maintained on a cost-effective
basis.

(Q) What exactly are "Text Online Services", "Premium Homepages" and
"Delphi E-mail"?
(A) Depending on what type of account you opened and when, you may not
even be familiar with all of these terms. The Text Online Service was
offered as Delphi's primary service through the late 80s and early 90s.
Prior to now we've chosen to maintain this service and construct a
"bridge" between the old text interface and the newer web-based forums.
This has become impractical and too costly to support. The Premium
Homepages were initially offered in 1997 and 1998 and included special
authoring tools and additional storage for building homepages for a fee.
Delphi E-mail is any account that uses xyz@delphi.com as an
e-mailaddress (e-mail was originally provided in conjunction with
Homepages and text online services).

(Q) What does "unsupported" mean?
(A) We hope that it means that these services will continue to be
accessible for many months without any fees. If there aren't technical
problems, then you will be able to use them for free. You won't be able
to get technical support either by e-mail or phone so everything will be
entirely on an "as available" basis. If something breaks, we may commit
the resources to fix it or we may not. It will depend on the time, cost,
and level of use.

(Q) I use the text-based games such as TQ and Scramble on the web. Will
these be discontinued?(A) Since these games are based on the old
platform they are prone to technical problems. Our hope is to continue
providing the games, but it will depend on the technical support costs.


Recommendation for alternative services: E-Mail services: If you use
Delphi.com for e-mail (your address is something@delphi.com), you should
immediately set up an e-mail account with any Internet Service Provider
or one of the free web-based providers such as Hotmail
(http://www.hotmail.com), Yahoo mail (http://mail.yahoo.com). There is a
list of over 5000 Internet Service Providers at http://www.isps.com.
Once you have a new account set up, notify all of your existing contacts
of your new address. You can arrange for your Delphi.com e-mail to be
forwarded to your new account by sending a request to
service@delphi.com.

Homepage services: you can set up free personal homepages at hundreds of
sites on the web. Some of the most popular include
http://www.tripod.com,
http://www.homestead.com,http://www.geocities.com,
http://www.fortunecity.com, and http://www.xoom.com.

We appreciate your support of Delphi over the years and look forward to
your continued participation in Delphi's free forum services at
http://www.delphi.com.

Best regards,

Rusty Williams
President
Delphi.com Incorporated


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