Dual firmware announcement

[aceflor]

I am french too, and I have to agree that the way the deal with their communication is the perfect example of how not to communicate. I am no IT specialist, so I won't take that road, but I have an extensive experience with Crisis Communication, in the US, in France, in the UK and in Germany. I would never hire their communication specialist, if they have one, which I doubt.
They should really get one though. And one more thing: as soon as I saw the word "soon" on their blog, I knew they were heading for problems. Give a fix deadline, eventually a revised one if you are not going to meet the first one, or do not give one at all. Communication 101.
It's a pity though, they have good products and good ideas. But as soon as their competitors (and those are not the smallest ones, mind you) will gear up, they won't resist the pressure.

I would just like to assure everyone that we still produce the best cheese and wines ever, so please do not bring the guillotine yet, bad déjà vu !!!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Deneb

I have to choose between 96 pages of 5 books witch don't even show the title full! And how depressing it is to read two books at the same time if they are far away in the alphabet!!

Why don't you do something about that, and create a folder for the books that you're currently reading, and use the "Sort by file path" library option?

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by roncri

Actually, software isn't that hard to estimate, this is usually what happens.
Dev: Going by the design spec we figure that it will take 30,000 man hours which will mean a release date of mid-December.
Manager: To long, how can we shorten the release date to September?
Dev: Either hire more devs or cut features "B" and "F".
Manager: No budget to hire more devs. Cut B and F and we will plan on releasing in September.
TIME GOES ON
Manager: After looking over the competition we've decided we need to add B and F back in and we also have a new feature "K" we want to add but we still need to hit the September release date.
Dev: Then I need more people, we can't make this date with the resources I have.
Manager: I don't care about excuses, I want results

At this point morale is in the toilet and several devs leave the team to look for work elsewhere.

I actually had a job at a very large software company (makes an OS and is based in Redmond) where I got marked down on my review because my estimates were always longer than any other Dev on the team. I then pointed out that on the last project I was the ONLY dev to make all of their milestones. Didn't matter, I was still marked down as not being aggressive enough when it came to estimates.

It really makes no sense to me.

Your hints would suggest otherwise but I am positively sure that you have been working at the company I used to work for a couple of years. How else could you precisely repeat the discussion between me and our lead programmer? The only thing you missed in that dialogue was when features "B" and "F" were cut the deadline was set to June - as every clever manager knows that the project manager ALWAYS exaggerates so when I say "With insane amounts of luck, no vacation/sick leaves and everyone working overtime I can barely make September" he will *know* that I really mean "I can easily do it by June with both hands tied on my back"

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Have you ever programed on an e-reader ?
Do you know how things works at bookeen ?
Nope. You can't judge something unless you have all the facts.

Yes, there was some serious screw up. I'll have to wait a bit for firmware, so what ? Not the end of the world.

Please, don't get so excited. Your arguments start to lose the connection to the factual world....
1) You have not programmed an e-reader yourself. So you don't know any more about how hard it is as we do. So if you tell other people they must not have an opinion because they haven't done it themselves the same goes for you. How come *you* can say it is hard work if you don't allow other people to voice their opinion.

2) Even if I have not built a house I can judge a few things because I know the process and requirements for some of the work involved. Even someone who has not every last piece of information can have a learned opinion of a situation. There is a whole industry of people who call themselves "consultants" who have not every last scrap of information about what's going on in a company and have not been working there for years, yet they can still provide accurate and valuable suggestions to improve processes in that company.

3) If you want to share some facts about the work within Bookeen or shed some light on the details of why there was such a delay you are very welcome to share them with us. But unless you have some actual information you have to accept that whatever you think is happening at Bookeen is just speculation and therefore not in the least better than any other opinion voiced here. So if you believe that Bookeen is doing it right and their decisions are all the best and it's just a long chain of bad luck which they can't do anything against, then you are very welcome to stick to that belief. But that gives you no right to criticize the opinions of some people here who have experience with programming and project management without giving any factual reason except that you "don't believe Bookeen would do that just for fun"

4) You confuse two different things: programming and project management. Programming is not easy and there are always things going wrong when you least expect it. A project manager knows that and accounts for that (at least as much as he/she is allowed to by the management). Bookeen has been talking about folder view since end of 2007. There have been a few comments that they are working on it since early 2008 and there has been a definite dead line "beginning of 2009". If half a year later there is still nothing to show for it - not even a new date - there is no excuse whatsoever for it, it's just lousy planning (mind you: I say lousy planning, not lousy programming). I am not a really good programmer myself but doing a folder view is not quantum physics and if their people can't do it they can hire someon who can or tell their customers that they had to quit trying to do a new FW for this or that reason.
As far as I am concerned they don't need to put out a new FW, I can live with what I have. But what they are doing is still a gargantuan blunder which is a shame for any company, big or small.

5) I think I have to remind you that you went and got the new FW at the Paris meeting and have been moaning quite a bit lately about how much you want the new FW to arrive. If you were as patient as you claim to be then you would have stuck to the old FW and waited it out like the rest of us.

Apart from that I have to state that I like French wine, cheese, landscape and not the least the people but I still couldn't help but chuckle at the jokes. What was absolutely hillarious, though, was the response "if Napolean ever needed a reason to invade Austria"... THAT really made my day. It's just friendly fun, no reason to feel aggravated...

[Deneb]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why don't you do something about that, and create a folder for the books that you're currently reading, and use the "Sort by file path" library option?

It's a solution sometimes, thank-you, I didn't think of it...
But, I usually choose what I want to read next ... away from my computer (in bed lately ) among all the books that I would like to read that are in my cybook or SD cards...And I can feel like reading another book (away in the alphabet...) on a whim so my 96 pages are still, often, a pain to browse.

[Conor]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

Please, don't get so excited. Your arguments start to lose the connection to the factual world....
1) You have not programmed an e-reader yourself.
.

I haven't either. But file management, folders, and deleting files are essential parts of every operating system. And computer programs consist of modules so it's not a matter of creating a new one from scratch.
It does seem to be taking a long time.
Anyway, I'm ready. I've got my ebooks sorted in folders on my PC ready to copy across.

[gerraldo]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

2) Even if I have not built a house I can judge a few things because I know the process and requirements for some of the work involved. Even someone who has not every last piece of information can have a learned opinion of a situation. There is a whole industry of people who call themselves "consultants" who have not every last scrap of information about what's going on in a company and have not been working there for years, yet they can still provide accurate and valuable suggestions to improve processes in that company.

• someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.
• a man who knows 99 ways to make love, but doesn't know any women.
• someone who is called in at the last moment and paid enormous amounts of money to assign the blame.

Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold, your problems into their gold.

(you can find lots of such jokes HERE or by searching for "consultant + jokes")

[EowynCarter]

3) If you want to share some facts about the work within Bookeen or shed some light on the details of why there was such a delay you are very welcome to share them with us. But unless you have some actual information you have to accept that whatever you think is happening at Bookeen is just speculation and therefore not in the least better than any other opinion voiced here.

Oh, i don't know what's going on at bookeen. Just trying to point out that there are tons of things that might explain that mess.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Oh, i know know what's going on at bookeen. Just trying to point out that there are tons of things that might explain that mess.

I'm assuming you were trying to tell us you don't *know* what's going on behind Bookeen's closed doors.

Yes, you are right that there could be tons of explanations for the mess. For example, it could be that Bookeen has been infested with alien pods and they simply don't have the time to develop update code if they wish to keep their staff from being turned into pod-people. I'd buy that one.

Or maybe Kanye West happened by and (with Serena Williams in tow) and the two of them shot off their mouths to such a disgusting, revolting and shocking degree that each and every staff member of Bookeen has gone into catatonia. That's another explanation I'd buy.

Then again, it might be the water. Maybe we should all chip in for cases of Perrier as their last shipment got lost and having to sip tap water has so depressed them that they've yet to snap out of their collective fugue. (Knowing just how bad unfiltered tap water can be in so many cities, I'm laying odds on this one.)

Derek

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

I'm assuming you were trying to tell us you don't *know* what's going on behind Bookeen's closed doors.

Oups, fixed

And an other point is , there is way less "corporate talk" when you speak with a person face to face.

[T_Frain_K]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Yes, you are right that there could be tons of explanations for the mess.

I´d go with swine flu

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

I´d go with swine flu

Maybe the software caught the swine flu, and they are afraid that if they touch it they will be contaminated???

[Over]

The firmware wasn't released because the programmer didn't backup his work and forgot the password for his windows login. He's tried to recover the password by brute force, leaving the hacking software run for months, trying millions of different words. And it's still running.

I guess a few months ago Bookeen figured they will never recover the lost password, so he had to start programming again... Again.

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by Over

The firmware wasn't released because the programmer didn't backup his work and forgot the password for his windows login. He's tried to recover the password by brute force, leaving the hacking software run for months, trying millions of different words. And it's still running.

I guess a few months ago Bookeen figured they will never recover the lost password, so he had to start programming again... Again.

Actually he/she's been busy trying to program some tool to hack into his/her account but on the other computer there's no dev software installed and it's tedious to program in Notepad :-)

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by pieter

Who cares how difficult it might or might not be? I'm a customer, I don't care about those things AT ALL! Actually I pay not to care about such stuff.

But the "I don't care", lead to situation as roncri described.. Trouble is people setting the deadline sometimes don't care either, not listening to the programmer when he says "no, won't be possible".

I think I have to remind you that you went and got the new FW at the Paris meeting and have been moaning quite a bit lately about how much you want the new FW to arrive. If you were as patient as you claim to be then you would have stuck to the old FW and waited it out like the rest of us.

My gen3 did not crash like my opus does.
While i don't feel bookeen own me new features, they do need to fix the bugs.