Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains

2006-06-13 Thread Mike N
Thanks for the update - it was very well written.   I can be patient to wait 
for everything to get organized knowing what is going on.   My input -


Please keep a priority on 'no-error' software:  The software should 
never fault.  If it does, you should be able to use DECLUDE.GP1 and 
DECLUDE.GP2 or Dr Watson dumps to analyze and correct the fault.


   Best Regards,




---
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.



RE: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains

2006-06-13 Thread Kevin Bilbee
What is Commtouch it is www.Commtouch.com? Or something else.


Kevin Bilbee


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
 David Barker
 Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 3:59 PM
 To: Declude.JunkMail@declude.com; Declude.Virus@declude.com
 Subject: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains
 
 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.



Re: [Declude.JunkMail] Growing Pains

2006-06-13 Thread Matt




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:

  Action on the critical and actively exploited bug reported 10
days ago that causes spam leakage with invalid Mail From characters.
  Action on the serious bug with functionality reported 24 days ago
concerning WHITELIST being applied before IPBYPASS which can cause spam
to leak.
  
  Action on the critical and actively exploited bug reported 221
days ago where excessively long base 64 encoding will cause Declude to
fail to decode both viruses and content, causing spam and viruses to
leak.

I'm afraid that this isn't my whole list, never mind feature requests;
I gave up on such things a while ago. I'm mostly concerned with
Declude becoming a liability to me and my own business.

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."
  
"My hope here is that the new owners maintain and expand the
extensibility of the product by putting as many capabilities as
possible in the hands of the power users (expanded external filter
support and deep customization), while at the same time I imagine they
seek to simplify administration for those with less time and interest,
and that they don't change for the worse the way the product is
licensed for those seeking high volumes."

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