THE CUTTING EDGE: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : CompuServe Finally Sees the Light

Regular readers of this column know that I’ve been a fan of CompuServe for a long time. It’s the grown-up service, the one that’s indispensable to writers, consultants, entrepreneurs, investors, serious computer users--anyone with a need for quality information on demand and a willingness to pay for it. No other service comes close to the richness of its offerings.

Unfortunately, CompuServe often has made itself complicated--and expensive--for users, with its bewildering array of surcharges, premiums and additional fees. On-line fanatics sometimes derisively refer to it as Compu$erve, or CompuPay.

Now CompuServe is overhauling its pricing structure in a way that at first struck me as a price increase but that, upon reflection, probably will make the service cheaper and easier for most users. In speaking to CompuServe in Columbus, Ohio, I also learned that the company plans some other changes that will make its service much more likely to be the only one many users will find themselves needing.

First, CompuServe will copy America Online’s pricing. Basic service will remain $9.95 a month, but that will cover just the first five hours. Additional hours will be $2.95 each.

That contrasts with unlimited time on basic service now. On the other hand, CompuServe is eliminating the $4.80 per hour it now charges for accessing its forums, the Internet and some other services, such as the handy PC File Finder. As regular users will attest, these charges can really add up.

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For heavy users, CompuServe will offer 20 hours per month for $24.95, with additional hours at $1.95. Databases such as Knowledge Index and Magazine Database Plus will cost extra, as they always have.

Second, CompuServe is finally overhauling its onerous e-mail policy. Currently, CompuServe gives you a monthly e-mail allowance as part of basic service. Extra messages mean extra charges. Worse yet, CompuServe charges you for incoming e-mail originating outside of CompuServe. This self-defeating policy caused many users to get additional accounts on other services, such as America Online, that permit unlimited e-mail at no extra charge. In effect, CompuServe paved the way for its own competition.

CompuServe has finally seen the light, and starting Sept. 10 it will permit unlimited e-mail in both directions at no extra charge. It also plans to announce soon that it will let users pick their own user name. Thus, instead of 71603,144, I can be akst, or akst@cis.compuserve.com. (E-mail veterans will note the addition of cis in front of the traditional compuserve domain; apparently aliases will necessitate this, at least for a while. You’ll also need CIS for e-mailing an alias from within CompuServe, as in CIS:akst.)

Taking yet another page from America Online’s playbook, CompuServe’s next version of its popular WinCIM interface, due out in September, will contain an integrated World Wide Web browser. CompuServe users now access the Web separately from WinCIM.

CompuServe also says it is working on a way for users to set up their own World Wide Web home pages. (America Online already offers this on an experimental basis--the keyword is home page--and Prodigy offers a rudimentary home page system of its own.)

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Even more radically, CompuServe is starting a whole second service, goofily called WOW!, aimed at novices and casual home users. WOW! will offer parental controls, multiple sign-ons, lower prices and fewer offerings. It’s a bold move, apparently predicated on the notion that CompuServe is a service that appeals more strongly to business users and computer geeks, which it certainly always has done.

CompuServe isn’t neglecting those users. It has always been the service to use when you’re not fooling around. It offers local dial-up access in 150 countries, outbound telnet so you can reach anyplace on the Internet, and reliable service that, in my opinion, has always outclassed the competition.

By next May, though, it plans to double the number of dial-in ports in its vast global network, to 85,000, making busy signals even rarer. It should be noted that CompuServe is already the most international of the Big Three on-line services, with more than a quarter of its 3.3 million subscribers outside the United States.

Many of the planned changes reflect the ascension of Bob Massey, a CompuServe marketing veteran, as the company’s chief executive, along with the recognition that something had to be done about the explosive growth of user-friendly America Online, which now has more than 3 million users.

But it’s no coincidence that the changes at CompuServe are happening at about the same time as the anticipated Aug. 24 arrival of Microsoft Network, the on-line service that will be built into Microsoft’s new Windows 95 operating system. Despite my dread at having to install Windows 95 (you can’t access the network without it), I’ll weigh in with a look at the Microsoft Network in the weeks ahead--just as soon as I can get my computer working again.

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Daniel Akst welcomes messages at akstd@news.latimes.com.

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Playing the Forum

Although CompuServe is eliminating special charges for its forums, the forums and everything else will cost at least $2.95 an hour after the first five hours per month. So regular users might still want to consider one of the many software packages that automate forum and other processes in order to minimize time charges. CompuServe Navigator, for instance, can be had using the go command navigator. To check out a similar product, go tapcis.