BSw

[Postmaster Account]

On Wed, 04 Oct 2000 18:54:10 +0100, Jason Gibbs wrote:

Hi Guys,

Just popped in to see what's up and it's back on the road in the
morning - left the wife in Charlotte with her sister and ran home to
Wilmington alone  to grab the kiddos for a trip to the zoo Monday.

A quick comment on the below, and addressed mainly to our OS/2 users:

The thing I will be doing over on the PMMail site is to  put a page
where bugs and/or features and/or requests are addressed in the next
release _after_ we know they are fixed and have it working here and
ready for beta testing.  Very few features cannot have most of the bugs
mashed before release with proper testing and of course we'll be
standing by the first 24/48 hours to see if a stealth update/patch is
necessary.  .   This way, we can at least give you an idea of where we
are at, and how we are progressing.    I was not lying/joking/kidding
when I said we had a 2 page list of bugs/issues we thought we could
address and now we're trying to live up to it in deed - it was not
meant to be hyper-bs the way I think it might have been taken.    I
personally sat down with Peter and went through the list.   

That'll give some insight, but it won't take the sting out of it if
your issue can't be dealt with by the next release and I hope that by
trying to be more open  (I never felt like we were hiding anything but
evidently that was the appearance and I can see how that could happen
in hindsight) you'll be able to see that we do more than send emails.  
I can't stay in apology mode forever, because we're making a good
product better, finally, and are bringing the OS/2 version along for
the ride against the advice of almost everyone who is on this side of
the fence.    

It took a while, and we've taken a well deserved beating but I hope
having one of the best cross platform OS/2 / Windows based programmers
heading up the coding makes up for it a bit.   There were precious few
other choices-  the most common suggestion from people who I am lucky
enough to have access to was more or less "Kill the OS/2 version if you
want the program to be (financially) successful."  and from a
beancounter standpoint that's something you can graph and have a hard
time disputing.    But, I just can't see it.    Maybe I can see the
Windows version having features that the OS/2 version doesn't,  or a
Windows release made before an OS/2 release due to the large market of 
development tools"available  but there is currently no shortage of
improvements that can be made to the OS/2 version.  We'll just have to
see how it plays out.   We've got to sell enough to pay more than 4
guys and the Network Associates PGP royalties and that
ain't-a-gonna-happen if we hold back the Windows version.

What I'm trying to say guys, is that you're not, nor will not, be
forgotten.   I hope that comes through without being distorted.       
(Maybe I should end every paragraph with ( "I meant that as a good
thing." or "I meant that as a bad thing" <grin> so there would be less
misinterpretation due to the way email loses inflection, tone,
gesutures, etc. that you get in a real conversation.    I can say that
anyone (everyone?) I've talked to face to face has agreed with the
decisions we have made.

Read this well:   Both Peter and I are so intent on making this (and
PMView) a commercial success that he is moving here to our location
from Finland this Spring to build up the development team.    We've
started working he and his spouses'  visa through, and I am taking the
next 3 months to mostly concentrate on the infrastructure of Blueprint
and finishing up some unseen, but awesome BMT projects that are being
completed this quarter.

We want a PMMail/2 and PMMail Windows release this year.   It's the
middle of October - so we've got to work pretty fast.    Hang in there,
and thanks again for your support.       I am going back to reading the
list on a time alloted basis as I re-prioritize things in my life and
get back in the groove.   Jimmy and Trevor can be found over on the new
lists and in the web forums or by phone or fax if you need technical
support.   I'll be back in the chair on Tuesday.    On their behalf, I
must say there role is support, which _seems_ to be pretty good.   Most
of the complaints are about the HOW the support is available, but we've
been there already and I think we've got our bases covered.    The
lists should be intact, and there is always the phone, fax, web forums
and email.    The web forums get searched and used a tremendous amount
where people are using it like a searchable knowledge base and that's
good.

BTW, didn't go to Charleston - got 25 miles down the road, took a right
on a state highway and drove 8 solid hours straight into the mountains.
  Yesterday, almost precisely 36 hours ago, I was standing atop the
highest natural point east of the Mississippi river at Mt. Mitchell, NC
- oh man, awesome.    It's the first time I felt tuned in and like
"Everything is gonna be ok" in I can't remember when.

Hopefully, this missive didn't offend anyone - it's about 1:30 AM and
I'm typing mainly out of that wakefulness that comes from driving 7
hours - guess I oughta go hit the hay.   I'm assuming this is a list of
folks who don't mind a story or too woven in with some PMMail related
material and is pretty laid back and that's nice.    All I ask is the
same thing you do - a fair shake.    I'll do my best to keep you
informed as we go along - ask if you have any questions (better email
me at tbrad@bmtmicro.com though just in case I don't get this.   It's
coming from postmaster@bmtmicro.net I believe and I was just holding
this address while we where switching servers.    I don't want to be no
permanent postmaster - that's just what I need.    <BIG grin>

Thanks,
Thomas








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>>>On the other hand, they've been taking a lot of crap, much of it 
>>>unjustified, for a long time too.  As nearly as I can tell, a lot of
>>>it is from people who really don't have a good grasp on business,
>>>software development, or both.
>>>
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>What's this based on? I'm CTO for two fairly large tech companies. How would BSW know exactly what I do?
>
>How about the bug fix so I can read my email without PMMail bailing out twice a day choking on certain spams.
>
>Jason
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