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Prolific is always looking into ways of streamlining the distribution of updates and Key Codes. Since the last upgrade, they have changed ISPs, installed emergency backup servers, and written a great deal of software to handle different type of problems.
However, when you are dealing with this type of volume, the most robust of servers can go down. It even happens to big companies all the time.
The big problem is impatience. If we start sending out Key Codes at 6,000 per day, those people come right back and hit the server for a 1 meg download each (3.2 megs for the Mac). About 1/10 of them (conservative estimate) might have questions or problems. There's 600 emails for our 3 customer-service people right there, each of which takes about 5 minutes to answer. But then those 6,000 tell their friends that the update is available, and they all descend on us too. Pretty soon (way too soon this time) some website posts an announcement, and then the 10 million users of the free demo are alerted. If 1 person in 1000 from that group has a question, that's 10,000 emails.
And we do all this for a free upgrade which does not bring in a dime of revenue until we start charging for it in 90 days. You know, I don't mind any of that. It's people's irate attitude that gets to me. You wouldn't believe the threats and accusations in these emails, when all we're trying to do is give them something for free.
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