On 8/1/00, Kirk McElhearn wrote: >On 1/08/00, at 8:32, Benjamin Cramer truempyi@YAHOO.COM said: > >>I haven't got a clue what's coming up in NW6; it doesn't >>seem like anyone on this list has even seen a beta version, if they have >>they've been sworn to secrecy; > >I have seen a beta version, and, like some others on the list, am a beta >tester, and have been for a few years. > >I don't think Nisus want a lot of beta testers, but I can assure you that >there are enough of us. Enough to do what? :-) I haven't done beta testing for Nisus, but I have done it for a different product. The list of testers was long -- but so was the list of bugs. The only way having more testers can hurt is if they overwhelm the people responsible for dealing with them. Not a criticism of Nisus, just an observation: A product can *never* be tested enough. Remember Nisus 5.0? >Naturally, we are "sworn to secrecy" - it is a question of respecting a >company's product secrets until they are releseased. While many >companies do public beta testing, I can assure you that it is not the >norm. I work with software companies doing translations and writing >documentation, and I have not ever seen a company that really authorizes >beta testers to talk about the products (except for the rare public beta >programs). I really don't see this. Not in Nisus's case. Nisus really *does* have a problem: A severe shortage of new products. From that standpoint, NESY helps -- but it's competing with a bunch of free products, and follows a completely different paradigm. If NESY is the only salvation for Nisus Software, then Nisus Software is sunk. I would observe that Nisus is unlike other programs in that its users are an essential and irreplaceable part of its function. Nisus Software didn't produce the HTML macros; a user did. Chances are, if there ever is to be a Quark Tag writer, that users will be the ones to produce *that*, too. Nisus needs to harness that energy -- among other things, it should be collecting all the macros it can and shipping them with the product. But that means that we have to *see* the product. Macros which worked under version 4.0 sometimes broke under 5.0, because commands had moved or changed names. It will happen again with 6.0. Nisus has a real problem if it ships 6.0 and announces "the XPress Import macros worked with Version 5.1, but you'll have to wait a few months until (so-and-so) updates them for NisusWriter 6.0." As it stands, we don't even know whether we're going to get any useful new features. I gather we'll be getting zoom. No use to me; if I'm doing detailed layout, it's in something other than NisusWriter! I'm not in a position to switch, because I don't buy Microsoft and there aren't any alternatives. But this sort of thing really tempts me. If, hypothetically speaking, I were considering a switch to Word, I would want to switch *now* rather than wait. New versions of NisusWriter have run slow for as long as I can remember. I don't blame Nisus Software for this; I've written software, and I know how hard it is. But you can't maintain market share with an old product and no idea of what's coming out. Not when your primary competition is Microsoft! -- Bob Waltz waltzmn@skypoint.com "The one thing we learn from history -- is that no one ever learns from history."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Aug 05 2000 - 23:00:11 AEST