Cynic wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:27:46 +0100, "Dave (from the UK)"
wrote:

Chessbase admit the fault exists, and have known about it for several
months, but have told me in an email that fixing it is not a high priority.

With bug fixes by small companies, the rule is that two types of bugs
get priority. The first is a bug fix that a big sale depends upon.
The second is the "squeaky wheel" principle that the person who
complains the most often and persistently gets the bug fixed to shut
them up.

There is unfortunately another common situation with software that is
a couple of years old - the person who wrote it has left the company
and there is nobody else in the company who has a clue how to fix the
bug.

You could call a UK agent of the company. Explain that your technical
department is evaluating the software to bundle with a minor Christmas
promo of a popular PDA targetted at stocking-fillers for high income
professionals. Ask for quotes for price breaks for 100K, 250K and
500K copies of the program. Then call back a couple of days later and
haggle with the prices quoted, saying that it is all looking promising
provided you can finalise in time. Almost as an aside, mention that
your testing department has identified a minor bug with their
database, and request a timescale to fix it. Tell them you will have
to put the testing on hold until they advise you that they are ready,
and say that it is getting really tight for the Christmas deadline.

Of course, you have to have a lot of cheek and sound *really*
convincing to carry it off.

LOL !

some colleagues and I pulled this trick on our *own* company once, to
bypass the ludicrously tiresome layers of paperwork that meant the
slightest bugfix took months.