Dual firmware announcement

[EowynCarter]

Because trying to do something with less resource than needed work ?

If the needed dev time is 100h, and your developer can spend 70 hours on it in the given tine, things won't be done in time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Flinx

Yesterday the German news site of Heise had an report about new Ukrainian readers based on Netronix hardware, but with EPUB and PRC and Adobe DRM, and PDF, RTF, HTML and TXT. And they povide an SDK.
Maybe this will become the better firmware for the devices. I think the life will be more difficult for Bookeen.

The the PRC support will not have support for DRMed Mobipocket eBooks. So unless you know how to strip the DRM from Mobipocket eBooks, it's a no go for any uoi have with DRM.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

If the needed dev time is 100h, and your developer can spend 70 hours on it in the given tine, things won't be done in time.

True. But adding another programmer to the project is likely to reduce the amount of time the current programer spends in productive work in half (because of helping the new programmer get up to speed), and will also increase the man-hours needed to be spent on the project, as the two programmers will need to spend time talking to each other about what bits they are doing, and how the bits of code need to work together.

With one programmer: 100 man-hours. Needs to be done in 10 working days, but programmer can only sped 7 hours a day working. Will run four and a bit days over the time limit

With two programmers: 130 man-hours. In first ten days you get only 35 hours from first programmer, and being incredibly generous, say 35 hours from second programmer, leaving 60 man hours still to do. If they are now both fully up-to-speed, they'll just finish in another four and a bit days.

Hm....

Adding resources to a late project usually doesn't help. In fact, it usually makes it later, unless the added help is already familiar with the code and the working methods.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

You mean like "how many French programmers do you need to get a firmware done?"

More than Bookeen has on staff.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

True. But adding another programmer to the project is likely to reduce the amount of time the current programer spends in productive work in half (because of helping the new programmer get up to speed), and will also increase the man-hours needed to be spent on the project, as the two programmers will need to spend time talking to each other about what bits they are doing, and how the bits of code need to work together.

With one programmer: 100 man-hours. Needs to be done in 10 working days, but programmer can only sped 7 hours a day working. Will run four and a bit days over the time limit

With two programmers: 130 man-hours. In first ten days you get only 35 hours from first programmer, and being incredibly generous, say 35 hours from second programmer, leaving 60 man hours still to do. If they are now both fully up-to-speed, they'll just finish in another four and a bit days.

Hm....

Adding resources to a late project usually doesn't help. In fact, it usually makes it later, unless the added help is already familiar with the code and the working methods.

True too. Hence the need to get you estimate right at first.

[Seventh Son]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

True too. Hence the need to get you estimate right at first.

Seriously, how many times have you seen a software project that meets any estimates?

[Godzil]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The the PRC support will not have support for DRMed Mobipocket eBooks. So unless you know how to strip the DRM from Mobipocket eBooks, it's a no go for any uoi have with DRM.

Yep the pocket book have for now no support for any type of DRM. So for US or Europe it's nearly useless..

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Seventh Son

Seriously, how many times have you seen a software project that meets any estimates?

Software are hard to estimate You should add some pretty big margin, there you have hopes it will do.

[pdurrant]

Any software project that looks like it's going to be on-time (or early!) immediately has some extra features added to the specification to ensure that it will be late after all.

We wouldn't want to spoil a perfect record. :-)

Originally Posted by Seventh Son

Seriously, how many times have you seen a software project that meets any estimates?

[K-Thom]

Yep the pocket book have for now no support for any type of DRM. So for US or Europe it's nearly useless..

Believe it or not, I've seen the beta of the firmware update for DRM on the IFA. Took them about four weeks to get that far. It's scheduled to be finished in another two weeks.

Depending on what the vice president told me about the responsibilities a programmer at Pocketbook has to take for his/hers assigned tasks, these two weeks sound rather realistic.

So they switched from the Eastern European market to the Western European within six to eight weeks. If Bookeen ever should move that fast, I'll bring them a cup of coffee and a croissant for breakfast!*

*) which means I may sleep late in the morning for the time being ...

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

Is it just me, or is that your favourite comment?

och noo - i can also do

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

True. But adding another programmer to the project is likely to reduce the amount of time the current programer spends in productive work in half (because of helping the new programmer get up to speed), ...

Yes, but the training part of your quote is a relatively short-term effect. They have had this problem since the original G3 release two years ago. If they had added programmers back then they should have been productive by now.

As a former manager, my take is that it is a manager problem not a programmer problem. It always is. For example:

1) You may have incompetent programmers. By now you should have identified that, hired the talent, and fired the other folks.

2) You may not be letting your programmers do their work. You have a small company and you keep pulling the programmers off the job to help ship the new product, handle customer service, etcetera. Hire folks to do the other stuff and let the programmers program.

There are many other possible issues, but the bottom line is that Michael and his staff of managers need to manage -- not just watch the problem.

The scariest (for Bookeen) alternative is if they are truly stuck. Perhaps, they simply can't justify as large a staff as the job requires given their sales volume. Perhaps, their programmers are founders with substantial stock ownership and can't be fired. The reason this is scary is that Bookeen was a good choice when they were the only alternative. If Bookeen hasn't gotten big enough to grow their way out of this problem yet, it isn't going to get any easier. I'm afraid the company faces extinction if it can't compete.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

Believe it or not, I've seen the beta of the firmware update for DRM on the IFA. Took them about four weeks to get that far. It's scheduled to be finished in another two weeks.

Depending on what the vice president told me about the responsibilities a programmer at Pocketbook has to take for his/hers assigned tasks, these two weeks sound rather realistic.

So they switched from the Eastern European market to the Western European within six to eight weeks. If Bookeen ever should move that fast, I'll bring them a cup of coffee and a croissant for breakfast!*

*) which means I may sleep late in the morning for the time being ...

Salary are not the same, work hours or not the same either. You can't really compare.

Perhaps, they simply can't justify as large a staff as the job requires given their sales volume

I'm afraid that's prety much bookeen's problem. Hopefully, a few things will help (like the opus being at the fnac, a bit less expensive than gen3.)
An other thing that would help, it's the french publisher publishing e-book. Offrer in france is ridiculous.

[Baldrake]

The fnac's offer is pretty amusing - Opus + 75 free books, every last one of which you can get for free from Project Gutenberg.

In addition, you can get a €12.50 discount if you also purchase their €30 loyalty card.

The joke's on me, though, because I just might buy it.

[K-Thom]

Salary are not the same, work hours or not the same either. You can't really compare.

Welcome to a global world. You can compare. And you have to compare. And you have to compete. Like it or not. Otherwise Bookeen should have just stuck to France.