Allen,
Thank you very much for your well-reasoned responses in
light of sometimes vitriolic postings (I plead guilty.) I
very much appreciate your membership on this list and your
participation in these discussions as well as the fact that
the company is allowing official presence on this list.
I've been trying to figure out why I am so upset by these
things, and I finally realized yesterday evening that much
of my anger comes from the feeling that I've been betrayed
by Coda/Net4Music/MakeMusic. I have invested heavily in the
product and thus in the company (although I don't own stock
in it) over the years, having spent between $80 and $120
each year (until this year) in support of a product I had
great confidence in. That means that I have invested
approximately $1600 over the years (initial purchase plus
upgrades). Yes, in exchange for that investment I have had
the use of the program with improvements, but I could have
stayed with my initial $400 investment, put no money further
into the company and still been using that original version.
Or I could have leapfrogged a lot of the interim versions
and bought only a couple of them over the years, spending
much less to support the company.
But each year the company has asked for my money and my
support and until this year I have given it, having seen the
preceding couple of releases do nothing to improve my work
with the program. I have also seen the increase in major
issues with each new release over the past several releases
and that is what I feel betrayed by.
The perceived arrogance of the company with its annual
update schedule, which is publicized as if it's the best
thing since humanity learned to write music, in the face of
shipping programs with major problems which it turns out are
known about at the time of release but which the company
refuses to acknowledge until/unless someone raises a fuss,
is really bothersome.
The hobby-horse of SmartMusic and the company's perceived
push of that product, in light of the fact that it is still
the notation products which keep the company afloat,
marginilizes all the notation product users and thus the
annual supporters of the company. Reading the annual
reports, the company readily acknowledges that the quarter
where the release of the new version of the product is the
best quarter, and acknowledging that it is the new version
of the *notation* product which is the cash-cow for the
company makes the company's focus on SmartMusic all the more
puzzling. i found it curious that in the annual report for
2006 MakeMusic included two graphs right next to each other,
which at first glance shows that MakeMusic is huge winner
over the notation products. On closer inspection, however,
it turns out that the SmartMusic graph is a chart only of
the numbers of users, with no indication of income
production, while the Finale graph is a chart only of income
production without any indication of the number of users
(units sold.) When two graphs of a companies products are
placed side by side, as if in comparison, wouldn't a company
which isn't trying to hide things use the same basis for
both charts so an adequate comparison could be made? If
notation really is the money-engine for the company, they
should put whatever development team together that is
required to ensure that the only bugs in any new release are
minor bugs (which I will readily admit all programs have and
I do understand how hard they are to squash). Additionally,
the company should allow for longer periods between upgrades
when significant major changes are made to basic functions
of the program. Linked-Parts still isn't working as well as
the advertising implies (nor is it living up to its full
potential yet) and the new change in the PI for expressions
obvsiously needed more time for full and proper
implementation. Instead the company *appears* not to put
such importance on the new release, figuring that we'll buy
the new version no matter what and will be happy when they
get around to the interim update which fixes the most
egregious of the bugs which shipped with the original release.
The company, in its annual report, speaks of all the
libraries of publishers it has licensed for SmartMusic.
Knowing as little as I do about how businesses work these
days, I do know that no publisher will license its library
for such usage without money changing hands and thus
MakeMusic paying a licensing fee of some sort (either
per-song, per user or a blanket 'use the whole library'
annual fee). Yet we can't turn our original music into
MakeMusic files (which comes as a no-cost extra ability
built into Finale) and use them with our students without us
or our students paying the annual subscription fee to
MakeMusic for using the program. That's fair enough -- use
their program, pay them. But the real arrogance is that we
get none of that licensing money back for paying them to use
our own original music. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, Alfred,
[insert publisher names] all get money when we use their
music. MakeMusic should be a low-cost purchase, and then a
subscription fee should be charged *if* we wish to use any
of the commercial music MakeMusic has licensed, but if we
choose to make our own arrangements or compose our own music
for our students to use, we should be able to use that music
with no additional fee other than the original purchase of
the low-cost program itself.
The final arrogance comes from *knowing* about problems with
a new release and not letting the installed user base have
access to that knowledge in order to make an informed
decision as to whether or not the upgrade is a wise purchase
or not. I can understand why such knowledge is not made
public, but that doesn't excuse it. Many of the people who
use Finale use it for professional purposes as engravers.
To release a crippled tool and not let the potential users
know that is simply not fair. Many others who use Finale
use it for purposes ancillary to their main employment as
music teachers -- sure, most likely the TGToolsLite bug or
the PattersonLite bug with the included plug-ins won't
affect them in any significant way, but it may well lead to
frustration on their part as they try to use the plug-ins
and the plug-ins don't work properly. New users will assume
that either they don't understand how to use the program or
they will discard the program and apologize to their
department heads for the investment in a site-license for a
product which doesn't work. That makes it easier for the
competition, Sibelius, to enter the market. How that helps
MakeMusic, Finale or the installed Finale user base escapes
my understanding.
Finale has long (perhaps always, despite recent attempts to
change things) had a reputation for being a program which is
difficult to learn. Including plug-ins which don't work (or
the previous release's smart-hyphen problem, etc.) but not
making the fact that those plug-ins don't work known to the
user simply adds to the impression of "impossible to learn"
that Finale has been branded with. One person running into
this problem but not knowing the real reason why these
plug-ins don't work turns into a walking advertisement for
Sibelius, which shouldn't be allowed to happen.
A simple apology note that users have to see as part of the
installation of the new version (whether the user actually
reads that note or not is up to them) explaining what the
problem is and the reason for it (Allen's explanation about
the drastic change in the PI for the new expressions is easy
to understand) would avoid this.
How many new Finale users (or indeed veteran Finale users)
are there who don't have access to this group of experienced
Finale users who can help them understand that some problems
are not their fault? How many simply abandon Finale in
frustration? We'll never know.
At any rate, I will do my best to control my complaining,
and will hope that a better corporate climate takes over
MakeMusic where the customer is king and transparency is the
rule, and the "annual upgrades whether ready or not" cycle
gets broken.
I will continue also to hope that I win the lottery. It
will be interesting to see which happens first. :-)
In the meantime, Allen, thank you.
David H. Bailey
[snip]
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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