Michael, I'm not yelling at you, I'm giving you my perspective. Hopefully, you'll pass this upstairs.
I know a little about software development... I worked in an environment with fulltime developers all around me. Someone is making business decisions without considering the company image. They're looking at what development costs are, and they don't care about the end-users.
They chose to force the "consumer" into a choice, and I can guarantee you that there will be not one single customer that will be happy about this. Do you know why? None of the choices are appealing.
If that's what your business leaders want, that's surely what they're going to get.
It's a no-win choice. Let's sum it up:
Fork out $29 and lose features,
Stay with the current offering, lose support,
Spend $150 and move up the ladder, recover features you used to have,
Go to Adobe, spend more money.
No matter what, this one is going to hurt everyone involved.
When business leaders force these types of decisions, it does NOT foster brand loyalty. In fact, it does the opposite. People start grumbling. They complain. Some will scream from the treetops to anyone that will listen.
Have you tried running a business where people complained? It's an uphill struggle. It's VERY hard to sell your product and be successful. If you put out a good product, stand behind it, and help your customers, the customers will sell it for you. You will quickly be the top of the heap. They will praise the product until... well, until something like this comes along, and suddenly, the whole thing comes to a screeching halt.
Your company's behavior makes them look greedy and un-interested in their customers. This is typical behavior for Microsoft and other large faceless corporations.
When smaller businesses make mistakes like this, they sometimes recover by correcting their error quickly. If they don't, they lose marketshare.
Once marketshare starts to erode, the good employees start to see the sinking ship for what it is, and quickly leave. Business managers quickly look for some way to salvage the business. Layoffs, downsizing, selling assets, general panic, and then the usual attempt to sell the business to someone else.
If your business managers want to create a hostile atmosphere, one in which loyal supporters angrily and quickly start spreading their bad feelings across the internet, photography studios, and to anyone who will lend an ear, by all means, continue to release "upgrades" like this one today.
Most of us know it's not the employees that make these dumb decisions, it's the idiot(s) in control that need to have some salt poured into their wounds. I won't be spending another dime until some company bigwig apologizes and corrects the mistake.
Michael, thanks for the info, I and many others appreciate it.
Print this, send it to your management.
I was just about to purchase the product for my new 10D, but now I
am completely turned off.
If this is true, and Michael doesn't change it, I'll just be
upgrading my PS 7 to CS very soon.
--
http://www.wingsoflight.com
pbase supporter
I understand your feeling, but let's let this play out before you
give up on C1. It is still the best regardless of these release
snafus, so give me a little time to see what I can do. I appreciate
your frustration, but I appreciate your paitence even more :> )
--
Regards,
Michael Tapes
Senior Product Manager C1 RAW Workflow - Phase One
http://www.RawWorkflow.com
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