Alexander Turcic
12-17-2004, 09:38 AM
AvantGo has revamped its support site (http://avantgo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/avantgo.cfg/php/enduser/entry.php) now offering a more detailed knowledge database.
Wow, this is the third news on AvantGo today. Looks like they are trying to get some attention before Christmas ;)
hacker
12-17-2004, 10:42 AM
I personally don't trust them (not just because I work on a far-superior project), because of:
The deceptive proxying techniques
Their incredibly-insecure syncronization
Their ever-increasing bloat
Forced advertisements (even when as a "paid" user)
Their consistent lack of usable and usability features
Their proprietary conduit nature (malsync (http://www.tomw.org/malsync/) doesn't count)
Their abusive server-side spidering, ignoring robots.txt
They have a great model, if you never use it outside of your own personal intranet.
Back in 1997, I brought AvantGo down to $BIG_PHARMA to do a demonstration, and ask them about modifying the source code (the back-end is all Python, or was in 1997). Their refusal to let us modify the source for our Intranet use, prompted me to look for alternatives.. and exactly the motivation that allowed me to discover Plucker (http://www.plkr.org).
I still have the Christmas card from 1998 that their senior management team sent me, with all of their signatures on it. How nice of them.
They're still trying, but they have a lot of competition ahead of them now, due to their stagnation and lack of innovation in the last 4-5 years.