A recently posted comment questioned the wisdom of our policy of not talking about what may or may not be under development here. I thought I had discussed that policy here but apparently I haven’t.
As you know, before we started Laridian 11 years ago (October 1998) we spent ten years working at Parsons Technology. It was great to be able to make our mistakes at someone else’s expense before launching our own company. One of the things we learned was not to talk about our release dates before we were ready to ship a product.
There are two main reasons we’ve kept this policy over all these years and through two different companies. First, we don’t want to signal our plans to our competitors. We all compete for a limited number of customers. If we signal our intentions it helps other Bible software companies know how to allocate their limited resources to better compete with us.
The second reason we keep quiet about what we may or may not be working on is to avoid the extra work it creates. If we announce a product, we start getting calls and emails from people who want to know when it’s going to ship. If we announce a date and miss it (which is about a 100% probability in our business) then we have to deal with the customers who call or write to ask what’s going on. They always want to know an updated ship date, though if we missed it the first time I’m not sure why they think we’d get it right the second, third, or fourth time.
If we ignore those requests we’re perceived as unfriendly to our customers. So we have to take time to respond. You might argue that we have the same problem when we choose not to comment on what we’re doing. I can tell you, though, that it’s significantly different. When I can say, “We don’t talk about what may or may not be under development, but we appreciate your suggestions” it brings the discussion to a close. In fact in Tech Support that’s a predefined response that we can just paste into our reply and move on quickly. On the other hand, once we’ve opened the box and projected a ship date, we can’t easily close the box.
We have tried lifting this policy at various times. We did it for iPhone and it was OK for a while but when we ran into some technical issues that delayed the project by six months we ended up having to just shut off the flow of information for a while until we could figure out how to handle the issues. The combination of not really having anything helpful to say and having to answer a few customers who were downright nasty was difficult to deal with.
This raises the point that plans often change or are disrupted. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve completely changed our direction in an afternoon. Our decision to develop the original Web-based app for the iPhone (back when that was the only way you could do iPhone apps) was made on July 3, 2007 and a large amount of development on it happened on the July 4 holiday. Projects we had previously been working on were abandoned or delayed while we dedicated people to iPhone development. However, because none of this was public information, there was no time wasted explaining this massive change of direction to anyone. We didn’t have to apologize for missing a ship date, or reveal our plans for this new platform until we were completely ready to do so. (We actually hinted at it on July 5, but we didn’t really formally announce it until about three weeks later, when most of the work was done.)
I think part of our problem is that we want to be friendly and accessible. I think we’re way more accessible than most other software companies. I reply to every email sent to me, and we reply to all our tech support email in a timely fashion. (Just don’t call me at home. I mean, seriously, some people have no boundaries.) I reply to comments here on the blog. So the more information we have available and out there to talk about, the more time it takes. If we limit the information it helps us also limit the amount of communicating we have to do.
For example, I haven’t been tempted to give a long dissertation on the Android. It’s sufficient to say we may or may not be working on it. If you want to argue that it’s the Next Big Thing and that Google is obviously taking over the world and that we should just get over it and develop for Android, I can end the conversation by saying “we may or may not already be working on it”. I don’t have to get into a discussion of the relative size of the Android market vs. other platforms, the technical challenges of porting to Java, the state and maturity of the SDK, etc. I may or may not already agree with you. There’s no need for me to go into more detail. If I disagree with you, saying so might reveal our plans for the platform. If I agree with you, that also might reveal our plans. And I might be working on it while disagreeing with you on how great the platform is. Or I might not be working on it now, but agree with you and have plans to do it in the future. No matter what the situation is, commenting on it could lead you to the right or wrong conclusion, and now we’re back to the problem of signaling our intent to competitors and having to take time to communicate about it.
The obvious problem with this policy is that it may cost us some customers in the short term. However, if we’re not developing for a particular platform, then we plan to lose those customers anyway. If we are developing for the platform, we could still lose them in the time it takes for us to get our product out the door. So no matter what we do or plan to do, and no matter what we say, we still risk losing customers at any time. So if the other factors outweigh the benefits of talking about projects in advance, it’s worth not talking about them.
This isn’t always an easy rule to maintain, but every time we’ve broken it we’ve been stung by it sooner or later. We’re currently on a pretty tight-lipped phase after having been bit earlier this year. I’m sure we’ll loosen up again in the future and who knows, maybe our experience will be better. At least now you have some idea of our thought process on this policy and I hope that helps.
In the meantime, we may or may not be working on whatever it is you want us to be working on.
I noticed your sort of bent the rules on the iPad and announced you are working on software for it. However, that’s understandable, given that it’s basically an iPhone on steroids.
Looking forward to more great Laridian products in the future! (Especially on the Palm Pre, since it’s now out on Verizon and soon will be on AT&T!!!)
Sincerely,
Nathan
Not really. The rule is we don’t talk about it until we’re confident of our schedule. Since iPad is rumored to run iPhone apps, we felt comfortable talking about it.
Wow, Coming from a sales background, I had a shock at the thought of what appears to be the cut-throat world of selling bible software. I thought that working on delivering Gods Word may be free of at least some of the worries that exist in other sales organisations, but that sadly doesn’t seem to be the case. I dare to go so far as to say this is not normal work but mission, in that case(?), God bless the folk at Laridian in Jesus Name. Back to the funnier side… It can be imagined that bible software developers are right now frantically dumpster diving at the rear of the building trying to find that crucial bit of intelligence to get the edge over Laridian.
I hope you guys have a shredder – but you may or may not tell me that for security purposes.
Love Mike
We do very little of our work on paper, so there’s not much to shred. We work from home and would notice any strangers lurking about.
Last year I had to have the new iPhone because it finally met the requirements I had. All requirements that is but one, pocketbible. But I knew it was coming so I used a couple of the free ones out there until it came out. Would I have bought the iphone if I did not know laridian was working on it? Yes.
Am a little apprehensive about buying your bible software. Can’t get OliveTree software to work with my new Blackberry Curve 8900 because their Java Class applets are still in the *.JAD installation format and the latest Curve only recognizes *.ALX or *.ALI files. Being a Computer systems developer for 38 years tells me I must find some Cell Phone Bible software vendor that is keeping pace with installation software…
Our Bible software for Blackberry is actually from BEIKS. You should ask them your question about JAD files: http://www.beiks.com
As a software developer for 18 years, I completely understand and agree with Craig’s statements. While it’s frustrating for Customers who want to know what’s coming and when, I remember a day before Laridian when Bible apps were very poor. I’m exceedingly happy that this company exists and while it may not have every application for every platform in existance, I’m amazed at what they have been able to develop and keep supported.
Well done, guys! Thank you and may God bless you and your company for helping so many grow in their faith.
I have a small copy of The Living Bible – Paraphrased as a “Thought for Thought” translation Bible published in 1985. Recently my battery on my HP iPAQ with Windows Mobile has not been lasting long and on the way to church, finding my iPAQ dead, I grabbed my Living Bible. As I was called to read in Sunday School and in Bible Study, people were amazed at the clarity of this translation where as the wording of all other bible translations kept the reader scratching their heads! I do love this translation, but the font is like size 4 or 5 and the pages are difficult to turn. It would be ideal to have this available in my Laridian Bible for Windows Mobile.
What is the possibility of making an electronic version of this bible translation available for the Laridian audience? And before you say that you already have it in the New Living Translation, let me say that from what I have seen, it is not the same at all.
Thank you in advance for your response,
Henry Aldridge
It’s been a long time since anyone requested a copy of The Living Bible. I don’t believe Tyndale is issuing licenses any longer.
You’re right that the New Living Translation is not the same. It is a translation, where the Living Bible is a paraphrase. You might want to take a look at The Message, which, while very different than the Living Bible, is a paraphrase and is more up-to-date (the Living Bible was “cool” in the 70′s but sounds a little dated in the 10′s).
Hi Craig,
Some time ago I contacted you to ask abou running Pocketbible for Windows on a Mac. You helpfully suggested that you used parallels to do just that.
Anyway I took the plunge and bought a MacBook instead of a windows laptop last week.
Hunting on th internet for a good price for parallels I came across VirtualBox, which I free for personal use. After following the setup instructions (well I am bran new to mac!) I now have PB running in a window on my mac and bes of all I don’t have to re-load windows each time as the app just saves it’s current state on exit.
Now I I don’t know your policy on telling people about other companies products but it seems to me that this could b an excellent answer for those people asking about PB on Mac (ie it’s free and it works, and if you maximise PB within th windows window(!) it acts just like any other mac app).
Anyway god bless and thanks for the updated sync!
Robin (Sittingbourne, Kent, UK)
Well…. I understand your position…. but when it comes to economics you have to go with what is going to give you the best bang for your buck, which also allows us to use or savings on vendors like you!
along with unlimited everything for 65 bucks a month…. all thats left is to find the best APPS !!
But – if your primary focus is supporting AT&T, who has the highest phone usage costs and not the best service, i.e. 3G vs 4G…. I don’t know what to say …. except that maybe I need to find those companies that can for see the promise and diversity of the ANDROID Market … All IPhone has over the market NOW is the EASE of USE with their APPS – Once Android APPS meet those expectations – that will be the end of IPHONE leading the pack, because as of today the IPhone has lost their footing when it comes to access and service level, re dropped calls. I have never, in the past 5 years experienced one dropped call with Sprint
Click the Android link under “Categories” on the left to see what we’re doing for Android.
Sprint has less coverage than AT&T where I’m at, and that’s not much. I’ve had trouble with AT&T, though not dropped calls.
I don’t think people realize that Apple has done what it has done (24% market share) all on one carrier. It’s almost frightening to think what would happen if they had a phone that would run on Verizon’s network.
Anyway, we’re platform agnostic here. Our decisions aren’t made based on zealotry or bigotry, but on how to best use our very limited resources (me and Jeff) to generate the most revenue for the company.
Hi, A long time ago, I remember reading about why you do not have word highlighting capability. I cannot remember the reasons but it would be very much appreciated to have this capability to make this truly a Bible as there are key words that are super important for me. I used to have a CE PDA and I remembered that I could do it then and then it was lost when I went to Windows PB and iphone.
Thanks and regads,