Delayed firmware update due to legal dispute?

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Customer happiness ? And anyway, it will be the SAME firmware the the opus. That totally kills your reasoning, sorry.

If it was the exactly same firmware as the Opus they would be able to release it. The fact that they still have nothing even months after the Paris meeting beta pretty much shows that this is not the case.

You told us that at the meeting they had to check the serial number of the devices and flash different versions. That is prooof that there is no such thing as one firmware for all devices, at least not yet. Of course they will share code between the devices (why wouldn't they) and it's pretty likely that they have a common repository. But there is absolutely no indication that there ever will be the SAME firmware for Opus plus all Cybooks. You killed your own reasoning...

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Tech stuff need to be changed sometimes. Someone happy will eventually buy the same brand again, someone unhappy won't.

I like the Cybook but if you say "Tech stuff need to be changed sometimes" then that would clearly rule out Bookeen. I would buy another Bookeen device if I had the feeling that it do what I need it to do, now and forever. If I suspect that I would need that device updated sometime in the future I would have to go elsewhere. You are, in a way, contradicting yourself: You always used to say that there is no necessity to update the Cybook, the update is just a nice gesture, and that therefore it is not ok to criticize Bookeen. Now you sound like it is a normal that devices like that are updated continuously, which is exactly what delphi and tompe always argued - only then you contradicted them.

Please, don't take this personally, I not - by no means - meaning to tease you. I am just trying to understand what your position really is and I can't. Either your opinion has changed since you're waiting for ePub and Opus bug fixes or there is something I am missing...

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I am not a fan of the legal dispute theory, but if there is a legal dispute the issue is whether Bookeen can provide "separate but equal" firmwares for MOBI and Adobe. Irex and Jinke say no, and so they provide the old MOBI DRM firmware but all new firmware is (or will be) Adobe DRM only. Bookeen says yes, but they have not actually delivered an updated MOBI firmware that is equivalent to an Adobe firmware yet.

I'm not sure dropping MOBI is entirely a legal issue for the other vendors, a single firmware supporting two DRM formats increases total sales more and probably requires less technical support than separate firmwares for each DRM scheme. The separate but equal approach may not be worth doing technically or financially, even if Amazon allows it. Note that both iRex and Jinke (for Astak in the US market) are willing to provide both Adobe and eReader DRM in a single firmware. I'm sure they would add MOBI if they could in a single firmware.

That mobi and ePub DRM cannot be on the same device is not a dispute, it's in the terms of use for the development kit. While there is no publicly available document (due to Amazon's secretive ways), it's become clear in the last 2 years from various sources and also from competitors of Bookeen.

The fact that you are bound to the legal terms you've accepted when you made a deal with some company can not be the reason for delaying a firmware for ages. They knew beforehand that they would not be allowed to do that and while it may not hurt to ask and bargain with Amazon it is certainly no excuse for delaying a firmware update for until the dawn of time.

The whole legal dispute theory has no basis because they handed out a preview of their firmware at a Paris meeting and we have it from users who have that firmware that there is no mobi AND ePub DRM on that one.
If the delay (it was scheduled for 1st quarter 2009) was due to legal problems how could they give that firmware to users months after the deadline? Even if they did, legally they would be required to ask the users to revert back to the original firmware (even though they cannot enforce it they at least have to try or they would be at fault).

Last but not least, there was nothing in that beta firmware which would give any basis for legal trouble. No dual-DRM, no changes in mobipocket support, just folder view and a few minor convenience changes.

[EowynCarter]

I like the Cybook but if you say "Tech stuff need to be changed sometimes" then that would clearly rule out Bookeen.

Hence my point : "making customers happy is important".

If I suspect that I would need that device updated sometime in the future I would have to go elsewhere. You are, in a way, contradicting yourself: You always used to say that there is no necessity to update the Cybook, the update is just a nice gesture, and that therefore it is not ok to criticize Bookeen.

Yes, update to ePub on my Gen3, i don't feel like bookeen owns it to me. It's an added bonus. It fits into the "do stuff to make customers happy". Though i would be furious if they don't provide it after saying they would. Still, I'll take it when it comes.
The update for Opus, being bugfixes, is an other mater. Bugs have to be fixed.
And criticizing is good, insulting and bashing is not.

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Hence my point : "making customers happy is important".


Yes, update to ePub on my Gen3, i don't feel like bookeen owns it to me. It's an added bonus. It fits into the "do stuff to make customers happy". Though i would be furious if they don't provide it after saying they would. Still, I'll take it when it comes.
The update for Opus, being bugfixes, is an other mater. Bugs have to be fixed.
And criticizing is good, insulting and bashing is not.

I totally agree that ePub is an added bonus and we cannot complain if Bookeen will never provide it. But what if you tell your customers that you would give them this exciting new feature and so those customers are happy and looking forward to that. But you fail to deliver and after quite some time has gone by the competitors have already introduced this feature (most of them for free via fw update as well) there is still no FW update on the horizon. Would you still say that the customers are happy? And if they eventually deliver the update (let's say sometime mid next year, just a speculation). Will the customers still appreciate that or will those that need that feature have changed to the competitors a while ago and those who don't need it have no use for it anyway?

What I am trying to say is that if you get something nice for free it still can be completely invalidated by not delivering when it's needed (much like the "free ride" in Alanis Morissette's song which you get when you're already leaving). In this case it's not so much that ePub won't be useful any longer when the FW arrives but people don't want to wait buying ePub books for long because that means they cannot read until then. On the other hand they don't want to spend money on mobipocket books when they already know that they will change once the FW is here.

But what about folder view? What about the other fixes people are waiting for. There are some who do not want to change to ePub, why should they have to wait for a feature they don't want to get their fixes and improvements? Folder view has been on the list of future enhancements since I bought the Cybook in November 2007. Of course there is room for argument whether this was a promise or not but it's kind of ridiculous that after two years that feature is still on the list for the next update and we 're still not one step closer (the fact that we know by now that it is in the next update doesn't help much because in late 2007 people thought they would get it in the first quarter of 2008 and that's about the time between the Paris meeting and today and still there is nothing in view). Do you honestly think that people will still be happy about that update once it arrives after having been teased with a dangling carrot for all that time?

In this case, I as a customer, do not feel that Bookeen is taking me seriously. These devices don't live forever and even if they don't break (or the battery pack gives up and is too expensive to replace) they are exchanged after a couple of years to get a device which is more up to the current standards. By now my Cybook is already through roughly half its lifespan, so the FW upgrade is slowly losing value for me. I guess that a year from now - if the FW is still not out by then - I'll slowly but surely start looking for a new device. I won't rule out a Bookeen device entirely but competitors who fix bugs timely, expand the existing features and maybe even throw in a few new ones, get a bonus in the evaluation because their products will longer be up-to-date and a longer life span means the price divided by the years until the next purchase is lower....

[Snuffi]

Good god, I write too long. Who's gonna read such an endless rant...

[peterbbb]

Oh, Snuffi, why didn't you put that at the start of your "long rant"? I just read through all of it!!!

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by peterbbb

Oh, Snuffi, why didn't you put that at the start of your "long rant"? I just read through all of it!!!

Sorry, didn't realize until I had finished it and it appeared... covering almost half my screen :-(
I seem to have a strong tendency to get carried away when I try to express myself clearly. Probably should prefix all my future posts with a special warning

[EowynCarter]

But what about folder view? What about the other fixes people are waiting for. There are some who do not want to change to ePub, why should they have to wait for a feature they don't want to get their fixes and improvements?

We don't know why the mobi firmware wasn't released... who said ePub had anything to do with it ?

Would you still say that the customers are happy? And if they eventually deliver the update (let's say sometime mid next year, just a speculation). Will the customers still appreciate that or will those that need that feature have changed to the competitors a while ago and those who don't need it have no use for it anyway?

I would unhappy if the ePub firmware shows up "mid next year". But i don't think that's what gonna happen.

[T_Frain_K]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

Good god, I write too long. Who's gonna read such an endless rant...

I just decided not to, than I read this

[tompe]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

I just decided not to, than I read this

It was an entertaining rant.

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

We don't know why the mobi firmware wasn't released... who said ePub had anything to do with it ?


I would unhappy if the ePub firmware shows up "mid next year". But i don't think that's what gonna happen.

Well, Bookeen certainly had nothing to say about the reasons but it's a little tricky to come up with good reason why implementing folder view (which has already been coded months ago as it's in the "beta") into the mobi version could take so long. ePub is a completely new feature so it is natural that there are some serious bugs initially which can take some time to get fixed.

You have told us several times that Bookeen is, in fact, trying to get a "universal firmware" done which is the same for all devices and comes in two flavours: mobi or ePub. As I fail to see how the addition of folder view into the existing mobi firmware could be botched that badly as to take half a year (and counting) longer than expected I rather wager that the problems are with the ePub version...

Until the Paris meeting I would have explained the delay with "they haven't started yet..." Now that the folder view is finished and "beta" users didn't report serious flaws, I don't know what - besides their vision of a unified FW aka simultanuous release - could impede immediate release of the mobi version

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by T_Frain_K

I just decided not to, than I read this

You didn't finish the sentence. What you wanted to say was:

"I just decided not to, than I read this *instead*"

Yes, that second post was a lot shorter and therefore much more inviting to read

[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

Good god, I write too long. Who's gonna read such an endless rant...

Me! and very well put and rational. You expressed my views dead on.
But you will not convince the folks in this thread that seem to think there is nothing strange or unusual in the way Bookeen is conducting themselves in this matter. Of course they already have updated firmware and can not possibly understand the frustrations of those who have been waiting almost 2 years for promised functionality.

[GeoffC]

anyone with a recent purchase of a Gen 3 - is it still shipping with mobi (only)?