Hello TBBETA Members! Every now and then some of us asks for the elusive v2. Now it's my turn. And I do break another of my rules, I will comment on the marketing scheme of RITLabs.
First of all, let me put forward a question: What is it that hinders companies to come up with the second version of their software? Clearly it's not just RITLabs promising and not delivering. Another two very good applications reside on my machines - Feurio and Agent -, to which v2 was promised long ago. In all three cases v2 was told to be under development more than one and a half years ago. There are other interesting parallels. Agent, for instance, has for years been a very stable and thought through program, offering most everything needed by its users. Only a few things are really missing - direct PGP support, subfolders, multiple servers. At least the last two items are promised for v2; other (minor) changes have been done within the current 1.x series. The audio CD burning app Feurio also proved to be very stable and reliable. Everything needed for its intended purpose (burn according to the Red Book standard, resulting in master CDs for professional productions) is already realised. Jens Fangmeier also added lots of other useful features. The only area where Feurio is lacking is the user interface, which will be (?) overhauled for v2. Currently only new drivers to support new drives are published. Now I come back to TB, which rarely had a version not stable or reliable - and those were, IIRC, all betas, and most of the time the unreliability wasn't in the core task of TB but had been connected to non-necessary (in it's strictest sense) features. But other than the aforementioned programs, TB gets major changes to the current 1.x series - some of them promised for v2, most definitely worthy of much higher version number jumps than have been done. Don't get me wrong, from a user's PoV it is nice to get such features as PGP/MIME for free instead of paying an upgrade price. The same holds for IMAP or whatever one's special wish. Considering, OTOH, that the time between betas is now counted more in months than in weeks, and we are still in v1, it looks a bit as though there never will be a v2. Why do I deem this bad? Well, RITLabs has to make money or they cannot survive, which would in effect mean, we lose a great program. One could argue that revenues flow in from new customers, but for various reasons this may not be enough. It is, for example, much harder to get a new customer than to hold an existing one. So, it is also easier to make money from the existing user-base of TB - as long as it is reasonable for us to pay. Looking back, the main feature TB was lacking for me was the missing support for PGP/MIME. If it had come with v2, and v2 wouldn't have broken anything I love about TB, it would have been a no-brainer to pay an upgrade price. But now it has been incorporated into v1 and needs just a bit of polishing (Why it uses base64 is beyond me, and why Oulook and OE users sometimes have trouble even opening my signed messages is way beyond me. Never had trouble in olden days using EUdora and PGP/MIME). I know that the 1.63 beta series is meant to be a preliminary beta for v2, but will that mean 1.63 will never be release other than 2? Or will there be a 1.63 and after that a new beta for v2 and a v2? What will this then incorporate that hasn't been done on v1? Will v2 only be the bug fixed version for 1.63 release? That would actually mean that support for v1 will no more be available and people have to pay for such basic things as bug fixes!? No, we are not entitled to perspective by RITLabs, neither legally nor morally, but it would be nice to get at least something like Forte offers for Agent on their web site: a broad road map of future developments. Yes, it would be better if developers could focus on development but customer relation is also very important as to not lose the base upon which one is building. Perhaps, Stefan, you could find a few minutes - will be more of the better of an hour or two - to share your thoughts and plans. With all due caveats that apply to such prospective talk (see the years old interview). Thank you! -- Dierk Haasis The Bat 1.63 Beta/10 on Windows XP 5.1 2600Service Pack 1 Why don't you ever see the headline, "Psychic Wins Lottery?" ________________________________________________________ Current beta is 1.63b11 | "Using TBBETA" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
