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David, People don't ask such questions when there is nothing wrong, so to pretend that everything is getting better is either a ruze, spin, or a lack of understanding. This list was formerly, and should be now, an asset to the company as opposed to being a liability or a task. I wonder if what I might say here even gets to the people that matter? It just seems that the company has been making choices that place customers behind other priorities such as selling the company and moving into new markets. When does action start to replace the promises? Action will stop such questions from being asked with such frequency. For instance:
It has been 26 months since Scott first sold Declude, and my comments to Scott and the list from that day are unfortunately no less appropriate now than they were then: "I hope that Barry and Charles both understand that Declude is not an inexpensive product and I'm sure that everyone around here expects a continuation of the same principals, or in the very least an upfront disclosure of any plans to derivative from the existing model. Speaking for myself, I've been developing a new business and making decisions based on the existing model, and some changes made at the top can cause my business a great deal of harm. I hope that they also respect the contributions of the community in respect to development, and the value that this represents to the business as a whole. You need look no further than the IMail forum for an example of what happens when you virtually abandon the hardcore followers of a product. I've experienced similar changes a few times, and invariably the bean counters win out over the community and their unique needs, though this tends to take some time and these were also big time buyouts. HomeSite for instance followed much the same path to date with Declude, and Allaire then Macromedia teamed up to harm the product from virtually every avenue while adding expense to the users. When I decided to go with Declude for my new business, I really decided to go with R. Scott Perry."It's not like we don't want to see you guys succeed. Matt David Barker wrote: To all Declude users: I wanted to send out a message to address some of the concerns being raised by our user base. Before I get down to specifics, let me give you some information about the general direction of the company.Declude is still a small company. Like any business, we want to grow, create better products, keep you our customers happy and enjoy what we do. Growth requires a certain amount of change. In our case that means hiring a number of new people to expand our customer support group and provide better service. It means looking for new partners such as AVG and CommTouch to make our software work even harder as security threats become faster and more sophisticated. It means finding a bigger, more productive space to work in. And it means that we need to explore opportunities to make our products available to more people. Trying to accomplish many of those things inevitably leads to making a few mistakes. Frankly, we made some seriously dumb ones over the last few weeks and we apologize for any problems we may have caused. Despite some of these unintentional screw ups, we still know who we are. Scott Perry established Declude as small company that really listened to its users and created flexible, powerful solutions that allowed them to customize Declude for their individual needs. It was also a company that was responsive to its users. Despite a momentary hiatus, that is the Declude that you will see again, and very soon. Now, on to specifics: Q - Why have we been so slow to respond to tech requests? A: Ironically, in an effort to expand both tech support and engineering to deliver faster response and better solutions we have expanded staffing in both areas significantly. We all know that that our software is powerful, but it's also complex and takes time to truly master its nuances. We underestimated the time it would take and the resources required to get our people in both areas up to speed. Our mistake. We are now past that area of concern and ready to be responsive to your needs. Q. - Are there issues or problems with the product? A. - No, just the opposite. The fact of the matter is we are working aggressively to offer an industry leading, fully integrated solution that is both powerful and affordable. The AVG announcement is one example as is our upcoming addition of Commtouch to that suite is another. Integrating those solutions, while expanding staffing, moving and training was a result of biting off a bit more than we could chew at once. Timing was hardly perfect, but we have finalized the CommTouch integration and learned some hard lessons in the process. Like it or not, when small companies make mistakes, they really stand out. I guess for a few weeks we forgot that we are a small company and that we, like many of you, have limitations. You have our word that we will go above and beyond to make Declude a company you can depend on. Thanks for your patience. Q - It seems some people have left the company that we were used to communicating with. Why has Declude been silent on those departures. A - The short answer is that we are bound to respect the privacy of all our employees. It is up to them to provide that information. Our job, like yours, is to protect and secure the privacy of individuals and the enterprise, we won't make an exception in this case. David Barker Product Manager Declude is Cybercom Security - Email. Voice. Messaging. 978.499.2933 office 978.988.1311 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com. --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com. |
- [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains David Barker
- Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains Mike N
- RE: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains Kevin Bilbee
- Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains Matt
