Hi,
In 2 weeks we will be half way through Quarter one. Surely you have a firm date for VS2008 support by now please?
Im going to have to make some tough choices and shift to a new toolset that does support VS2008, which would be a shame. We all have to provide dates to our clients as professional software development shops, and I'm getting a really bad taste in my mouth about the lack of VS2008 support and the fact you are not even providing a date for it. I must admit I am disappointed at the seemingly lack of care or concern over this issue, and feel Infragistics really missed the ball on Visual Studio 2008, which at the end of the day is your cash cow product.
Can you at least give us a firm date please so we can do some planning please?
Thanks in advance,
If only it were that easy..
Here's the dilemma. We are trying to get our NetAdvantage 2008 Volume 1 release out the door which is where the VS2008 support will end up. Because the VS2008 support is tied to a new volume release, it means it has to wait until our QA team has verified that we can indeed RTM (which means testing all new features for the volume release, etc). That as you know, is not something that you can simply set a date on. We have to hit certain code coverage numbers and metrics before we can ship the product.
That all aside, as of today the ship date for NetAdvantage 2008 Vol 1 is set for Feb 11. Barring any critical showstopping regression issues, expect to have your new version by Valentines Day.
I thank you, and everyone else for your continued patience and honest feedback.
-Tony
Still on schedule for release today?
Contact sales@infragistics.com I'm sure they'd like to talk to you to find out why you won't be renewing your subscription for another year.
I've been waiting for a 2008 V1, hoping there maybe some cool controls but wow, what a let down... Looks like infragistics is moving on from winforms and moving towards updating only webform controls.
Tim Hitchings "] Contact sales@infragistics.com I'm sure they'd like to talk to you to find out why you won't be renewing your subscription for another year.
You think so wouldn't you. When I talked to Matthew Canale in sales about the price changes and how I wouldnt be renewing next year. He used words to the affect, that I was 1 in 50,000 customers and 1 license wouldnt make a difference.... That, lack of quick bug fixes/support and the poor 2008 1 has lost infragistics a customer!
If thats what the sales guy said to you then that's pretty poor. I have been an infragistics fan boy for a couple of years now. Been praising them, using their tools in all my projects and like a kid looking forward to all their releases. However 2007 was a mixed year for me as I had the worst experiance with IG. First it was the skinning fiasco from 2007.1 which blatantly disrupted a whole load of customers designs, then it was the continued lack lustre releases all the way to 2008.1. As a fan boy I defended IG on the grounds that the Aikido development was what was taking up their time, but once again I am not wowed over with its release. Now maybe im a picky customer or my expectations are a little too high but 2007 was the final nail in the coffin for me. I moved over to Telerik for my web controls and shamedly ive never been happier.
As an old fan boy I tend to look back on IG from time to time to check on things and for the ASP.NET front im still convinced that IG are seriously lacking. What does continue to show promise is the WPF controls. I am also hoping the silverlight front will be good. Always looking for reasons to come back home :)
Michael Josiah said: I have been an infragistics fan boy for a couple of years now. Been praising them, using their tools in all my projects and like a kid looking forward to all their releases.
I was too... each place I have moved to I got them to buy infragistics.
With the prices change and lack of new controls last year, I had to justify to my boss why he should pay that extra US$100+.
I rang up trying to get the answer to that question but all I got was "infragistics is a powerfull toolset..." blah blah... I said I wasnt looking for a sales pitch but for some information i could go back to my boss and say "hey they are going to add X control, we can use that"
During that conversaion, I was told i had missed out on the 90 day early bird special. I explained i had only gotten the 60 day email... 4 people get the emails... so one of us would have seen the 90 day early bird if it was sent. He wouldnt help me there.
I stated that that he would most likly lose me as a customer but was meet with the "who cares" attitude. I was just 1 license.
Anyway,
I convinced my boss to pay the 60 day early bird price and told him I would not ask him to renew next year unless there is a big change in the control set. A day later i get an reply email from Matthew saying i could have the 90 day price... well too late i had already paid the 60 day rate... I've replied to his email telling him that and maybe he would refund the difference but still have not seen a reply. That was 18 days ago. I would have accepted a "sorry we cant do that" reply.
I'm not surpised I got no response. I'm still waiting for an email from support telling me a bug report (Excel formatting bug) that i logged mid 2007 has been fixed. The hotfix was release maybe 6 months ago.. I found the hotfixes by chance while i was renewing. The status of my bug report is duplicate (from memory) and the problem is only half fixed.
If infragistics wants more information, then they are welcome to email me driectly.
I hope infragistics adds some new winforms controls and not just Vista look and feel. One can only hope.
Since this seems to be the current "Bash Infragistics thread" I might as well toss in my .02 worth. I have been a huge fan of the toolset going back to the 2006 volume releases. We have upgraded every year and for the most part have been happy with the toolset. I do believe Infragistics is slipping though and if we didn't have 50+ web sites running under the toolset we would most likely switch as well. IMO it seems Infragistics hears what we developers want but they do not listen very well. For example, I have been BEGGING for a light weight web combo and we still don't have it. Instead we have "search engine friendly" controls. Personally I could give a rats a$$ if the controls are search engine friendly or not. We are now paying more and getting less since Infragistics dropped support for the .net framework version 1.1. (We will be updating those sites to the 3.5 framework and 2008 version of the toolset this year).
We have upgraded our licenses to the 2008 volume releases but unless we get some really great stuff in Vol 2 and Vol 3 we won't be upgrading to 2009.
Michael Josiah said:I personally think it would be quite helpful for IG to know which competitor has a feature set that we find appealing.
For purposes of this discussion, it is necessary to discuss the features, but not the companies.
As Howard has shown us, there are appropriate forums for the "Which is better?" discussion.
I think that how I would feel about my company's forum being used to compare my products with the competitions would depend on whether the comparisons are favorable or unfavorable.
Here's a link to a relevant conversation:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?dotnet.12.590548.11
Edward McCarroll said: Michael, Zach, [anyone] There is a grey area between comparing features and promoting competitors, and in my (never-humble) opinion, this thread has gone further than I think appropriate. I would suggest that the grey area has been deeply penetrated when someone states: "<ThisCompetitor> { has | is | does } <ThusAndSuch>." I would prefer statements in the form: "Competing companies { have | are | do } <ThusAndSuch>." Statements of the former type might be more appropriately put into emails or private messages to the IG staff members who have so conspicuously contributed to this thread.
Michael, Zach, [anyone]
There is a grey area between comparing features and promoting competitors, and in my (never-humble) opinion, this thread has gone further than I think appropriate. I would suggest that the grey area has been deeply penetrated when someone states:
"<ThisCompetitor> { has | is | does } <ThusAndSuch>."
I would prefer statements in the form:
"Competing companies { have | are | do } <ThusAndSuch>."
Statements of the former type might be more appropriately put into emails or private messages to the IG staff members who have so conspicuously contributed to this thread.
I disagree on this point. I think it depends on the context. We all know who the three big name competitors are, its no secret. I personally think it would be quite helpful for IG to know which competitor has a feature set that we find appealing. This allows them to investigate, research and see if its something they want to include in their own product line. I think the line has to be drawn when people try to PROMOTE other vendors which I unintentionally might have done. I dont think we should be shy when mentioning other competitors I just think we need to do it in an appropriate manner. That aside lets not get distracted from the side topic. IG what are your thoughts on my previous comments regarding customer expection etc.
It certainly wasn't my intention to promote Infragistics' competition. Apologies to those that felt slighted by my post.