YADTPT! =(

Miscellaneous Editions & Licenses
1

That should read as Yet Another DT Pro Topic.

I come to realize that it passed almost a year since I started waiting for the “eminent” release of the (beta version) of DT Pro.
I know things take their time, feature list is long, etc etc etc, and I do not intend to harass, pressure or be rude to any of the developers since I highly respect their work but I do feel that it’s too much.

Alphas and betas were sent to testers months ago. From the reviews/articles featuring DT Pro I can see that the media already got their hands on DT Pro.
I now realize that you started the “first of four” thing in an attempt to buy some more time and not to gain momentum for a release.

Well… personally I’m fed up.
I haven’t bought a PE license because I want the PRO features. I haven’t bought any of your competitor products because I’m waiting to try the “it’s next month” beta.
A year as passed and the only positive thing is that I haven’t spent my money.

So please apologize the underlying tone, I posted because I do care about this product and I believe you should know what’s going on your customer’s minds (or at least in some of them), I wish the best of luck and success to all but I’m off.

2

At Devons’s own site DT Pro is still announced for “Summer 2004” and for “Fall 2004” simultaneously… … See devon-technologies.com/produ … arison.php

3

Actually, DT PE 1.9.1 is already more powerful than the developers thought the Pro version would be when they described the Pro version a year or so ago. :slight_smile:

I’ve been one of the lucky testers for Pro. We’ve gone through 34 alpha versions, and now are up to beta 6.

The developers have kept raising the bar. DT PE 1.9.x was rewritten based on the DT Pro code, and so has been well tested by yours truly and DEVONtechnologies’ other lab mice. DT PE now has most of the “usability” features of the current Pro beta.

Pro does have important additional features, such as multiple databases and (soon) multiple concurrent databases, sheets and records (still to be polished), ‘site sucker’ Web downloads and greatly enhanced scripting.

But DT PE is much more powerful than PE was a year ago. Example: hyperlinking and Wiki linking, which were originally, I believe, to be reserved for DT Pro.

Still more neat stuff is coming down the line.

4

Good to hear what you’re telling us, Bill! But perhaps it would be wise if Devon Technologies told us ‘officially’ (for instance, in the ‘Notification and messages’-section of this forum) what you’re telling us now ‘confidentially’. Any visitor of the website gets the impression the company is still working on something that should have shipped six months ago ……

5

They are certainly better at writing a great app than promoting it – this is done by happy beta testers 8)

The good thing is, it seems that they are willingly adding users as beta testers, so the PRo features are already available.

Best,
Maria

6

Bill: that’s all very nice but in the end DT Pro is still vaporware for the vast majority of costumers not involved in the beta test process.

Maria: no, the Pro features are not available. If they were, I wouldn’t start this thread in the first place. For all I know, they can be an elaborate fabrication involving bogus characters posting threads about it in this forum =)
From my point of view, you are promoting something that doesn’t exist and you’re happy with it =)

I do not intend to teach anyone how to run their business/promote their product (nor do I pretend to know anything about that), but I do know that is not the way to do things.

I know that the dev team is constantly raising the bar and pushing the feature list further more by adding more and more features. This has made a small group of people very happy (beta team) but is driving away potential customers because the only thing they know, is that the product promised to date x, has not yet been released.
The fact that I keep up with the forum, makes me an informed potential customer (the only reason why this as gone so far), and as one, I’m drawing the line right here. Now imagine all the uninformed potential customers…

I don’t care that the feature list is twice as big than the first one ever published! I want to use the damn thing, not read about it =)

The other software companies follow a simple set of rules:
1 - establish a milestone with a list of (new) features;
2 - release an alpha to a small group when that milestone is reached;
3 - work the alpha bugs till beta, then the beta bugs, and so on until the app is fit for release;
4 - release the final version to the public;
5 - repeat the whole process;

DT is stuck on an infinite loop between steps 1 through 3.
In the end, DT might deliver the best app in the world but they will have to rebuild all customer relations lost in this long process while the other companies have already a solid and growing customer relation.

Now, there are several reasons not to release public betas and I’m sure that DT have their own, but can anyone tell me one worse than driving customers away?
40 private versions are not enough for a public beta?

Just for fun, anyone remembers how long ago the Pro and Enterprise version were initially announced? Yup, that’s a laugh to say the least.

Anyhow, I’m writing again when I thought I wouldn’t.
I said what I want to say, I’m sure it’s not anything new to anyone but I hope all this serves some purpose.

7

I know that DT Pro is overdue but, to be honest, I don’t understand the things you’ve said. If you’re interested in DT and want to use it, then just buy DT PE now and upgrade to DT Pro when it will be available (as we’re not going to release incomplete or buggy software). No upgrade fees and therefore the same price. And you can already use the most important features.

8

My dear Christian,
for a couple of minutes I thought you were laughing in my face when I read the “when it will be available” part, specially after 2 long posts where the issue rolls around being already waiting for a year!
That was a poor choice of words…

Anyway… you don’t understand what I said because you are totally detached from what’s going on with a part of your audience, being so immersed in the development and testing.
You need to take several steps back and see what’s going on outside the dev. and test community.

If you take the time to read my posts, you’ll see a part of it as you’ll also see that in my first post, I said “haven’t bought a PE license because I want the PRO features” and without trying the Pro features, it’s pretty stupid to buy a PE license as I’m sure you will agree.

9

rbl,

Your rants are getting pretty annoying. You act like you are speaking on behalf of the customers, yet you aren’t even a customer. Customers have already purchased the software. You could just as well disappear tomorrow and all you’ve done is wasted DEVONtechnologies’ time. I’d much rather Christian devote his energies to the code and not answering your questions with answers that you clearly don’t want to hear. DT Pro still won’t be released till it is ready.

I understand your distaste for the web site talking about DT Pro in present tense like it is already something you can use, but the CUSTOMERS have been using DT for a long time now with gigabytes of database usage. Their customer base is already defined, DT Pro will just up the ante for the power users of DT – I would be hard pressed to say other then you that it is going to unearth a whole new customer base. You’re either using this technology or you’re not.

I am looking forward to DT Pro just as much as the next DT user, and I am one of the customers that was not invited to the beta program… nor would I want to be until it is public because I frankly don’t want to have my database wedged. DT and DA are fundamental pieces of my software development and research work.

To be fair though, you are correct about the SDLC – at some point you have to stop adding new features, iron out bugs and release. That’s why software has version numbers.

I hope you can understand. I know where you are coming from, but seriously, you aren’t assisting getting DT Pro released any faster – if anything you are using the forums as a punching bag and wasting developers’ time.

10

I might add that DEVONtechnologies’ has already offered a stance on the pricing. DT Pro will be available for the difference of the cost of DT – therefore you are not paying additional money by getting a DT license now and then upgrading to Pro when it is released. You could be using it now for no additional money, but if you think DT really doesn’t meet your needs then I guess you’ll have to wait.

11

No, I’m definitely not laughing at you (because I’m the first one to celebrate as soon as DT Pro will be finally available :wink:). But I do know where DT Pro is at the moment and (more important) that we’re going to release DT PE 1.9.2 and DA 1.5 this week. The last one is a major revision and therefore needed some time & resources. But 3 out of 4 will be complete this week and therefore I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel.

12

mgrimes, I answered in private because I don’t want to run the risk of anyone else decide to step in and distort again everything I said.
Anyway, this subject is closed for me but I’m a spoiled little 31 years old brat that likes to have the final word =)

Christian, I wish the best of lucks for you and all the DT team.
DT PE is a wonderful product as I’m sure DT Pro will follow it’s lead.

13

This is mostly in response to mgrimes’s note, but it’s partly also addressed to the DT developers:

I’m an actual paying customer – I bought DT Personal last April, shortly after I first heard about it, and it’s changed the way I work. I adore it. You folks (the DT developers) do great work.

However, there are two features of the Pro edition that I really want, and they aren’t in the Personal edition, not even in the latest version. I asked about those features in email in May 2004, and was told that DT Pro had them – and that DT Pro was “coming at the end of the month or beginning of June.”

Every couple of months I stop by here, and almost every time I stop by, I see statements that DT Pro is in a very stable late beta and will be released imminently.

If the two features I’m waiting for in DT Pro were essential to my work, I would be in the same position as rbl here. Luckily for me, they’re only essential to some aspects of my work, so I keep using workarounds and other applications to do those things, and I keep happily using DT Personal for everything else. But it’s still frustrating to keep hearing that the things I need are dangling there just out of reach – especially given the frequent statements that they’re coming soon.

And all the forum postings from happy beta users that say “The feature you want is already in the Pro beta and I’ve been using it for a year and it really rocks” – I know you folks who post that mean well, and it’s great to know that Pro will be really great when it’s released, but I’m afraid it kinda adds to the frustration for me.

So when someone like rbl who wants to buy the product expresses their frustration, please don’t slap them down for it.

I’ll keep waiting for Pro, and I’ll buy it as soon as it’s released, and I’ll be happy with Personal in the mean time. But it would be really great if DEVON could improve its communication with non-beta customers and with potential customers. Getting rid of places on the site that say Pro will be released in 2004 would be a good start (I don’t know, maybe you’ve already done that; I haven’t checked). Another good start would be refraining from making promises about when the app will ship – I’ve noticed in the last couple of months you’ve stopped doing that so much, and I appreciate it.

Software schedules do slip, all the time. But when a company keeps promising an imminent release and keeps not releasing it, all the satisfied beta users in the world don’t make the wait less frustrating for the non-beta users.

Clearly there are some non-beta users, like mgrimes, who don’t mind the wait; that’s great. That may even be true for most non-beta users; I can only speak for myself. But it seemed to me that mgrimes’s note suggested that nobody who’s actually paid for Personal Edition is frustrated, so I figured it was worth mentioning that I have paid for it, and I love it, but I’m still frustrated by the delays.

(And I know that the beta program is somewhat permeable – I’ve seen indications that anyone can get onto it by asking, though I’ve also seen indications that that’s not true. But for me, I can’t afford to use beta software for the things I use DT for, so I’m gonna keep waiting for the released version.)

I wouldn’t normally speak up about this, 'cause I know y’all are working hard and I don’t want to take your time away from DT Pro and other important projects. So no need to respond to my note here. I’m only posting to let y’all know that there are at least some paying customers (okay, at least one) who are happy with DT PE but who nonetheless share rbl’s frustration.

14

I second elysdir’s post whole-heartedly. I would also like to add one comment. Continually pushing back the release will lose the edge for DT. I think it is almost insanely great, but I too bought the PE edition in anticipation of the pro features. A potential customer may see this delay as a lack of commitment and migrate to something they find on the store shelf like NoteTaker or StickyBrain (both fine products that are getting better all the time). Lack of interest in DT means no future for a program I use constantly. Makes me worry a little. This is in no way a bash. I love DT, but… you get the idea.

15

I’m a paid customer for DT 1.9.2 and think it’s a pretty cool product.

I’d like to upgrade to the Pro version, because I could really use the forms and tables features.

Since I’ve only known about DT for about 6 weeks, I wasn’t aware that the Pro verison has been promised to arrive “soon” for past 6-9 months. I can see that that would be very frustrating to someone who is waiting. And if it is the same story 6 months from now, I will join the army of frustrated customers.

But I’ve only been waiting 6 weeks. I can certainly wait a month or two more.

The most important thing for me is that when DT Pro is released, that it does not contain bugs that endanger my data. Missing or broken features will not upset me. But I want a product that has no dangerous bugs. And I’ll wait for that. My 2 cents.