vrixon - appreciate your thoughts on this. I've thought about how this affects institutional buyers (sadly still a pretty small portion of our customer base), but it seems to me that any company buying the new version would want to wait until it was finished rather than purchase it while it's still in beta. So the first beta release of 2.0 will give you at least a month or two of advance notice about the release of the finished version.
So re your July deadline, there's no way that first beta will be out in March, so if it comes out in April (just speculating, it'll likely be at least a little later than that) the finished version wouldn't be ready until June, which means that waiting until July isn't really going to lose you much.
And we're certainly not pulling a Windows Vista here; taking a quick look at the 2.0 features page, two of the "Completely New" features are already in, the other two are both nearly done (and very easy programming-wise, so not a serious risk of getting dropped), 6 of the 8 "Search" features are implemented in the engine though we're still working on interfaces for a few of them (one of the remaining two, "More flexible result list" will likely be punted to a later release, though), the new database system is in and already working with custom dictionaries, all of the new flashcard features listed are at least well on their way to being done and none seem likely to be dropped, and the Pocket PC version is lagging a bit behind the Palm one but the only one of the three features listed under that that's at any serious risk of getting dropped is the new installer (which again would get punted to a later version). There's still quite a bit of work left, of course, but when the software is done it really should be just about everything I've been saying it will be.
Mads - thanks! That's my basic thinking, yeah. Though I'm sure vrixon has a good reason for wanting to wait until 2.0 is finished, perhaps to get a better deal on the new dictionaries or because of some sort of corporate policy issue involving upgrades.
Aunty - appreciate the vote of confidence. But yes, several of the things that seem to vex people most about 1.0 are the way they are because we were hurrying to finish it (though in that case it was partly because of licensing-related pressure which we're not really under as much this time) - flashcard import/export really should have been scrapped / heavily overhauled, the Rank system needed some refining as did the custom dictionary interface, and a couple more months on the Pocket PC version would have taken care of most of the font- and installation-related issues on that. I know there's no chance of getting everything right in 2.0, but hopefully there won't be quite as many annoyances as there are now.
lmcjipo - thanks! Much of what I wrote above applies to this too, but just to clarify, you don't have to pay for 2.0, you only have to pay for the new audio / stroke order features. I imagine that was what you meant by paying to upgrade, but just wanted to make sure. $30 (or $20 if bought along with the new dictionaries) isn't an insignificant amount of money, but it's a long way from making you buy the software again, and the vast majority of the new features (like the seriously awesome flashcard system) will be completely free for anyone who bought 1.0.
So re your July deadline, there's no way that first beta will be out in March, so if it comes out in April (just speculating, it'll likely be at least a little later than that) the finished version wouldn't be ready until June, which means that waiting until July isn't really going to lose you much.
And we're certainly not pulling a Windows Vista here; taking a quick look at the 2.0 features page, two of the "Completely New" features are already in, the other two are both nearly done (and very easy programming-wise, so not a serious risk of getting dropped), 6 of the 8 "Search" features are implemented in the engine though we're still working on interfaces for a few of them (one of the remaining two, "More flexible result list" will likely be punted to a later release, though), the new database system is in and already working with custom dictionaries, all of the new flashcard features listed are at least well on their way to being done and none seem likely to be dropped, and the Pocket PC version is lagging a bit behind the Palm one but the only one of the three features listed under that that's at any serious risk of getting dropped is the new installer (which again would get punted to a later version). There's still quite a bit of work left, of course, but when the software is done it really should be just about everything I've been saying it will be.
Mads - thanks! That's my basic thinking, yeah. Though I'm sure vrixon has a good reason for wanting to wait until 2.0 is finished, perhaps to get a better deal on the new dictionaries or because of some sort of corporate policy issue involving upgrades.
Aunty - appreciate the vote of confidence. But yes, several of the things that seem to vex people most about 1.0 are the way they are because we were hurrying to finish it (though in that case it was partly because of licensing-related pressure which we're not really under as much this time) - flashcard import/export really should have been scrapped / heavily overhauled, the Rank system needed some refining as did the custom dictionary interface, and a couple more months on the Pocket PC version would have taken care of most of the font- and installation-related issues on that. I know there's no chance of getting everything right in 2.0, but hopefully there won't be quite as many annoyances as there are now.
lmcjipo - thanks! Much of what I wrote above applies to this too, but just to clarify, you don't have to pay for 2.0, you only have to pay for the new audio / stroke order features. I imagine that was what you meant by paying to upgrade, but just wanted to make sure. $30 (or $20 if bought along with the new dictionaries) isn't an insignificant amount of money, but it's a long way from making you buy the software again, and the vast majority of the new features (like the seriously awesome flashcard system) will be completely free for anyone who bought 1.0.
