From reading this forum and trying to get visibility on where Billings is headed, I see that's sorely needed by all.

Marketcircle/AJ, can you please sit down and go through your roadmap and clean it up for customer consumption. I think it's fair to know what you're working on for the next point release and major release. And this doesn't mean you're tipping your hand or committing to features on a timeline. But I'm trying to decide on taking the plunge and others are trying to figure out why they should stick around... I've been on both sides of software development, and no matter how good a product looks (which Billings does), it's all in the active growth and energetic updates...

If Daylite is the cat's meow for your company, then good practice says to don't string your secondary product customers along...

Thanks in advance... and if you've posted this somewhere else that I missed, my apologies and please direct me there. :-)

Development is ongoing. You will see a new version of Billings soon.

Thx.

@AJ, hmmm... Wow, thx for that telling answer... so no roadmap, eh?

Yeaah, a roadmap would be nice. For me there are some deciding features that i miss in billings. For example automatic invoicing or stock/inventory for services/products.

Any information?

quote:

Originally posted by Naseer (Forums):
Marketcircle/AJ, can you please sit down and go through your roadmap and clean it up for customer consumption. I think it's fair to know what you're working on for the next point release and major release. And this doesn't mean you're tipping your hand or committing to features on a timeline.

How can we give you a roadmap without committing to features? If we tell you that we're working on x, y, and z and only deliver y and z because of technical constraints, we'll get mobbed with complaints about feature x - regardless of if we said it was only a possibility.

This is the reason why most small to medium sized software developers don't provide roadmaps.

Brandon,

Thanks for replying and continuing the dialogue. Considering AJ's lukewarm response and nothing forthcoming since then I'd concluded that Marketcircle's gonna be the close-lipped type of company. There are companies loved for their "openness" and others loved for their product. And others still, like Microsoft, who are hated but still 140 million copies of Vista get sold...!!!

If you really want to know how to share a roadmap with customers without committing to delivery dates, there are many good examples around. If you want to involve customers in the feedback and market-pull type of iterative product development, there are great devices to accomplish that. I wasn't sure what kind of priority Marketcircle gives to Billings (having won an award for it and all), but sounds like it's not much.

Hey, it's still the coolest looking invoices without a doubt. Customers will have to decide if other missing features weigh against that.

--Naseer

quote:

If you really want to know how to share a roadmap with customers without committing to delivery dates, there are many good examples around.

Can you list some? Keep in mind that we also don't want to commit to features to avoid the problem I mentioned in my previous post.

Dear Marketcircle,

Please search the Billings forum for how many times you have replied to a question about bug fixes, updates, or requested features with the word "soon". Some of these go back a long way--so, what's your definition of this word?

There are many things that several people have asked for. Clearly, you can't do them all, or else, not at once. I think what everyone needs to know is whether you've actually committed to ANY updates (whether minor tweaks or big new things) since nobody's seen a single point release in eight months.

There are a lot of good things I like about your software, but it's far from perfect and I would really like to see it improve. We're all waiting (patiently) for things to be fixed. I've personally tried reporting several shortcomings that annoy me on a regular basis, but it's very disappointing and discouraging when nothing comes of it.

I think it's at least fair to know your general priorities, whether you have lined up any fixes for the current version, or if all your effort is concentrated on "the big rewrite" for version 3. And in that case, it would be more honest to say "be prepared to wait" instead of promising something "soon" over and over... That is, unless you can justify your promise of "soon" with some updates on your progress...

I don't think anyone's asking you to commit to Feature X by Date Y. Just some acknowledgment of what you consider your next priorities...

Exactly how I feel too!

Add my voice to the chorus, and include the same comments for Daylite. I love both programs, use both programs, and am frustrated by both programs. Aside from my own idiosyncratic workflow-inspired desire for certain features and my shared desire for commonly expressed feature requests in this forum, the three biggest frustrations I have as a business user are 1) lack of constructive responses from MC (outside of tech support, which seems capable and responsive in most cases); the forums are where improvement is needed 2) a perceived undercurrent (real or imagined) that MC really doesn't give a tinker's ?&*# in most cases about user opinion if it deviates from their proscribed development course and 3) the glacial pace of updates in both Billing and MC (the recent tweaks related to integration with some 3rd party software notwithstanding, though those have been duly noted and appreciated by users). As I said, I love DL and Billings; I wish I could honestly say the same for MC. Nothing would please me more.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JRP,

Wow, it took a holiday weekend to get some life into this thread. I was beginning to despair that no one else felt any frustration with Marketcircle's closed-lipped methods. I hope that this new set of feedback will affect them, and I hope that others who see this thread will throw in their comments too.

BTW, Brandon, you can look at Intel as the best example of an open-book development roadmap publisher. And for a small developer in the Mac community who's really captured the imagination of the beta users (not reached 1.0 yet) please look at Cultured Code and their upcoming product, Things . We all know what they're working on, and they don't mind keeping us informed (via Twitter even) as development proceeds. Heck, if they're later than I think they should put out some feature, at least I know they're working on it...

AJ, you've done a good job getting Marketcircle to here with some great products at the right time. Billings deserved the award it got. But don't discount the value of keeping the user community "in the loop" as you move ahead. I don't think broadcasting your plans and priorities makes you committed, and even if you do commit, it's easier to get understanding when you're having a constant dialogue (both ways) with the users who've invested in your products.

I agree with the mention of the Things developer; which is also true of Together developer. And I'll give you two expanded examples of good and bad:

1. EXAMPLE TO EMULATE: Scrivener - excellent developer, excellent response to forums and issues, excellent communication, e.g. if he's not going to consider a feature, he tells you that up-front; conversely, if he is, he tries to give you a solid idea of what version it likely will appear in. Most impressive of all: he's a one man shop, developing part-time.
2. EXAMPLE NOT TO EMULATE - NowSoftware (Now Up-to-Date & Nighthawk) - generally unresponsive and non-communicative, poor software development scheduling exacerbated by poor communication when things started going south, vague responses to direct questions (until recently when user forums became very vocal given the 12-18 month product delay and history of poor communication), history of marginal updates and bug fixes, etc.

Do I lump MC with NowSoftware? No way. MC is a much better company with solid products. Like Naseer, I just want it to live up its promise...and its potential. Candid communication about development with users to the extent possible within the parameters of not "giving away the store to the competition" would be a step in that direction.

If you like a candid response - then here goes:

We will not publicly discuss specifics of future versions!

That has become our policy based on the fact that this kind of stuff has bit us hard in the *** before (and we are still paying for those gaffes)!

We didn't grow to be a 25 person company (of which over 50% are in engineering) by blowing hot air with what we *might* do (and then provide excuses because of some unforeseen complication - which always happens).

If you have concerns about our viability as a company or whether we deliver, read these posts: 1, 2.

Thanks, AJ, for your response, which was straightforward. However, you misread at least part of my posts.

I didn't question MC viability as a company or whether it delivered...in fact, I believe I stated that I use and love both of your main products.

What I argued for was a candid response in terms of 1) whether certain features, especially those requested by a fair number of users, figure into MC development plans. If they don't then I feel it would better serve MC just to let us know that the product will not move in that direction; that way we can adjust (or not) to that reality and, 2) more frequent communication (similar to your referenced post #1) so that your customers feel that they are being brought along with the product, even if there are not feature specifics to share.

When you communicate, you do it pretty well. I'm suggesting that you do it on a more regular basis--especially during a time when more CRMs are coming to market, DL delivers an update that while important in terms of integration with other business products, didn't have many updates on the core feature side, and when more small business users are needing to use the software they own more effectively to respond to market changes and demands, etc.

I hope there's some middle ground MC can find in this area.

From my point of view (billings being a huge part of my work flow) every month when I come to invoice I have to manually produce statements for several clients that I have done multiple projects for that month. Every month I get frustrated that I can't just produce this straight from Billings, and just about every month I go on the look and test another couple of applications that may do the job for me. Nothing I've tested has come close to the ease of use and nice looking invoices billings produces, so every month I decide to stick with what I know and hope, maybe next month there will be a new release of billings that has the ability to produce statements.
Certainly not questioning the viability of the company but I hope you appreciate the frustration from a users point of view of not knowing when this maybe resolved.