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          ³  VENDINFO -- What's in It for the VENDOR?  ³
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Although everybody benefits from the VENDINFO standard and tools,
vendors probably realize the largest direct benefit.  Regardless of
whether they're mail-order disk vendors, rack vendors, CD-ROM
publishers, or whatever, they'll find that VENDINFO reduces their
effort and increases their capabilities in many ways.

The ability to test for distribution permissions by using automated
tools will greatly reduce the effort expended by the vendor in
selecting and processing products.  This testing allows the vendor
to describe quite detailed distribution situations, and obtain an
output that conveys or denies permission, or indicates the additional
conditions that must be satisfied.

An even greater labor-saver for many vendors will be the ability
to extract a wide variety of information directly from VENDINFO
files, in order to produce catalog entries, files lists, etc.
This information includes product descriptions; required platform;
contact information for author, technical support, and ordering;
prices and registration benefits; distribution policies, and more.
Some distributors will find they can now automate the entire process
of catalog production.

VENDINFO can automate many other package-handling operations, as
well:

    o  It can test for allowable package modifications, such as
       recompressing, adding/changing installation procedures,
       addition of ads, help, or GO.BAT files, etc.

    o  It can automatically rename packages to the authors'
       preferred names, eliminating duplication.

    o  It can automatically move packages to selected directories
       based on the product category encoded in the VENDINFO record.

    o  It can build a list of older version packages that have been
       rendered obsolete by the current version, allowing you to free
       up space and maintain a current inventory.

    o  It can show you the names of other required packages, so you
       can verify that you have all parts of a multipart product.

    o  It can detect commercial or registered programs marked with an
       abbreviated VENDINFO "executable" record, even if they're part
       of an otherwise distributable package.  (late Spring, 1994)

    o  It can detect a package that has been altered from the
       original form prepared by the author.  To a limited extent,
       it can also determine whether or not the changes satisfy the
       terms of the author's distribution license.

    o  By providing automated access to author contact information
       of several sorts, it can reduce the labor associated with
       your communication with authors.

And VENDINFO helps in several other ways:

    o  The VENDINFO record provides a security layer, greatly
       increasing your confidence that you're seeing information
       as it was actually provided by the author.

    o  The VENDINFO file 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.

    o  The VENDINFO Product Registry (available by subscription)
       will allow the vendor to notice new products and versions
       that might otherwise be overlooked, maintain current contact
       information for authors, obtain screenshots, etc.

    o  The VendLib developer's library makes it possible for the
       distributor to write customized database software for internal
       use, and efficiently extract information from VENDINFO files
       into the database.