Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 06 Jul 2005, at 4:43 AM, Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote:
Darcy Argue wrote:
BUT... having said all that, it's still a little galling to see
Sibelius stealing "our" thunder like that. I think we came up with
an excellent plan for dynamic score-part linking in Finale (one that,
I should add, looks very very similar to the one Sibelius
implemented), and it is disappointing that Sibelius got there first.
Darcy, you must be aware that Sibelius read this list and the
Makemusic forums. (I know this from first-hand experience, trust me).
Of course -- in fact, I suspect I had the same first-hand experience
with Sibelius staff as you did.
So all of our discussions, while fruitful, in fact probably did a
lot of work for Sibelius. Hence the similarities... Mind you it's a
public list, so they're perfectly entitled to do so.
Well, sure. I'm not saying Sibelius did anything wrong, quite the
contrary. On one level, I'm very excited to see Sibelius implement this
feature, and may even purchase Sib 4 so I can try it out. It also makes
it much more likely that Finale will implement Dynamic Parts now that
the competition has it.
On the other level, it *is* very frustrating to know that Finale had the
opportunity to introduce this exciting feature before Sibelius, but they
blew it.
That Sibelius is actively searching out the frustrations and
disappointments of the users of its main competition speaks very highly
of Sibelius' commitment to providing the answers to everybody's
problems. That Finale was close to implementing the linked score/parts
but decided not to (was that when they implemented micnotator instead?
when they incorporated Band-in-a-Box harmonizers? MiBac ryhthm
generator?) makes the fact that Sibelius has succeeded to the level it
has succeeded even more galling to those of us who have been using
Finale for a long time, providing it's annual cash-flow with our support
of it's annual upgrades.
Why isn't Finale out there actively monitoring our frustrations, and
even monitoring the Sibelius lists to pick up on Sibelius users'
frustrations and desires so that Finale can actually be first to market
with features, instead of the current "Sibelius did it so I suppose we
have to do it" mentality?
It certainly seems that MakeMusic has adopted the attitude represented
so well by Lily Tomlin on Laugh-In all those years ago when she
portrayed a telephone operator: "We don't have to care, we're the phone
company!"
Finale's future growth depends on increased sales (as does Sibelius'
future growth) -- and much of that increase in sales comes from
word-of-mouth praise or condemnation from current users. I would bet
that many of us on this list get questions from others who are
interested in using a computer notation product, concerning which
product to buy, how hard it is to learn to use, what sort of output does
it produce and other such questions. Many people interested in
something new (whether a new car, a new instrument, a new couch, a new
TV, new computer, anything that costs a considerable amount of money or
involving new technology with which they aren't yet familiar) ask others
who have gone before. I know I get lots of questions concerning
notation programs, from my private music students, fellow musicians and
sometimes from strangers who know someone who knows that I use computers
for engraving music and were referred to me.
So I don't understand why it isn't in Finale's best interests to keep
its ears to the ground, to actively monitor this list and the yahoogroup
list (Sibelius has a publicly announced employee on the Sibelius group
at yahoogroups, and he answers a ton of questions and deals with user
frustration in a polite, efficient manner that gives those of us on that
list confidence that Sibelius actually cares about us.
I get no such impression from Finale, where tech support replies range
anywhere from the "gee, nobody else has complained, send us detailed
outline of how you found that bug and we might add it to our list" sort
of reply to "we'll pass it on to our development team and if enough
other users request it we will try to implement it" sort of reply.
Never have I received a "Thank you for pointing this out. We are
placing it on our list. Please continue to keep us informed of features
you would like added or problems you have encountered."
Instead, tech support seems to view my messages as nuisances to be
avoided rather than opportunities to improve company-client relations.
As to Tyler's point in another message that most people don't ever
encounter most bugs and so the development team doesn't place a high
priority on fixing them, in any other industry the same is true.
I find it sad that a company such as MakeMusic can take the attitude
"most people won't notice it so we won't do anything."
Why not take the attitude "if it's a bug, it'll be on the list to be
fixed because we take pride in our product and want it to be as perfect
as we can make it?"
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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