Any NEW development work on Barca & Pocomail?

[Flashfox]

PSI is awfully silent with regards to any new development work concerning these products. I remember that there was a lot more activity when earlier versions were being created & updated. However, since 2.5's release a while back, nothing much is being said here or on PSI's website.

Request for PSI...

Can you publish a product roadmap?

Can you share with us what we should (could) expect in the future?

Is there a future for PSI's products (PM, Barca, etc.)?

Business is business and in these days of rapid innovation, a product can become stale just because no new features are added. I would hate to see PM & Barca become a footnote in some history of technology book (like Signal 9 Solutions' excellent "ConSeal Personal Firewall" product after it was sold to McAfee)

[Tomas]

Since first two are more of a request (which I don't have powers to address), I'll only answer the third:

Is there a future for PSI's products (PM, Barca, etc.)?

Yes. There is an ongoing development.

I would hate to see PM & Barca become a footnote in some history of technology book (like Signal 9 Solutions' excellent "ConSeal Personal Firewall" product after it was sold to McAfee)

That usually happens when a product is sold to third party. They are usually buying it because of the development team, or because of some underlying technology, in those two major cases the product gets lost in the dust. That's all I'm fearing personally. As long as it's under current management, and a relatively popular project (see any public stats, like those from alexa.com), I think there is no reason for it not to thrive in the future as it did in the past.

[Andreas]

Yes. There is an ongoing development.

And when can we finally see a result of this development?

I would really appreciate an answer from Slaven himself. Tomas and Eric are doing a great job here in the forum. However, this type of question needs to be answered by the developer himself, even if he is very busy with other important things.

[Tomas]

You are right Andreas, I forgot to note in the original reply that I'm only answering it (partially) because I have a feeling that Slaven might be on the road at the moment, if that's the case it might take him some time to get back to the forum.

While I'm at it, I know that "there is an ongoing development" has no authority when coming from my mouth, so I'd like to add that such information is not my invention but is based on direct information from Slaven.

Since the questions about future development are increasing (probably due to the age of the last build), indeed it would be nice to have a direct answer from Slaven himself.

[Flashfox]

Tomas/Andreas, that is exactly what I am alluding to. Even though Barca and PM are great applications, there is a risk that people will move away if there is no news regarding future plans. Even a statement from PSI could help reassure the user base that PM and Barca are not dead end products. Let's face it, PSI is a small company and maintaining profitability in this day and age within such a niche market is not easy. Mozilla's Thunderbird is free and it is growing in popularity and capability. To compete against this, one needs to have an edge, a value-added feature set, something potential and existing users would be willing to pay for. I did... Although I rarely change applications, I did migrate from Outlook Express to The Bat! to Becky (great application by the way) to PocoMail then to Barca. Those transitions were done because I was reading about future plans... a form of roadmap.

Side note: As you know, Barca's opening screen shows someone holding a clock. The time shown is approximately 3 minutes to 12 (midnight? noon?). Reminds me of the "doomsday clock"... is there a subtle message there? (I did not check to see if the clock's time was advancing with each release of Barca subsequent to the new screen). Hey, this is just me having a bit of fun

I really do like Barca!

[Andreas]

This page says that Slaven is the "XOFTspy Portable Project Manager" at a company named "ParetoLogic". Maybe that's the reason why he has not much time for PocoMail.

[Tomas]

It's an information from 2006. (Though I'm not disputing whether it's still valid - I have no other info except what's available to everyone else on the net.) Btw. Slaven is not the only programmer working on Pocomail.

[Slaven]

We did have a "bit" of a problem with an outsourcer working on a major component of the next version that we couldn't do in-house, which has definitely delayed our plans. Unfortunately I can't say much more than that at the moment, I hope I'll be able to share more in the coming weeks!

Personally speaking, I did help Pareto improve their development processes but that was before 4.5 came out.

[Flashfox]

Thanks Slaven for the feedback. I will keep my eyes open for any news regarding Barca and PM

[MAL]

Good to hear of new developments, Slaven.

I'm struggling keeping Pocomail installed.

The NEED for better Chinese character support, the NEED for more flexibility as far as various account settings (such as different sounds for different accounts), etc, etc., and improvement in PocoMail downloading the same messages over and over is making it difficult to keep Pocomail.

It's disappointing that no new version has been out.

I'd been happy to have upgraded twice since 4.5, and yes, even if it mean paying a upgrade fee.

Slaven, PLEASE keep Pocomail developed.....it's a GREAT program - would be a shame to see its demise....

Cheers, MAL

[Flashfox]

June 22, 2008 and still absolute silence from PSI regarding future developments tied to Barca and PM. More importantly, no news with regards to MAPI support.

Is PSI still actively developping Barca & PM? If so, any "roadmap"? I don't know... this just doesn't feel right.

[Tomas]

There is, unfortunately, a delay.

As a user I absolutely love roadmaps too, but don't remember a company that could stick to them (there probably are some such stars out there, I just didn't have the chance to met such software producer yet).
In fact, even some of the most open and communicative ones, abandoned publishing their roadmaps after some time. Roadmaps are only a constant source of complaints of users that it's taking too long, or that this was planned but wasn't included.
Most of the software development anywhere takes longer than expected/scheduled. Less so when you are under million dollar contract work with late fees in thousands per day, but even there the development takes often more time.

(That's not meant as an excuse by the way.)

[Flashfox]

I understand Tomas. However, don't you believe that for the sake of their loyal user base that PSI would at least give us some insight as to what they are preparing for Barca and PM? Like when will we see MAPI support?

It's been over a year since the last Barca release and PSI hasn't really updated their website (many partner links result in "404", last update is listed as 2007, etc.) or provided us with any info. Slaven's last comment in this thread mentioned that there was a delay due to a third party, nothing more, nothing less.

[Tomas]

That's true, there are some parts of the website that need an update, and Slaven wasn't much present here on the forum recently. Hopefully the situation will improve after the release.
And yes the software used to be updated much often in the past, than in last 1-2 years (it's actually less than 1 year from last release, there was a small bugfix release in the meantime).

This is just a speculation on my side/ a guess: we all know there were some long-standing bugs, PSI might have decided to completely revamp the inner parts alongside even at the cost of long time between releases, instead of gluing new features and fixes on the buggy parts of the core (ie. what was reason that some bugs remained unfixable) which would make it even worser to fix or rebuild in the future. Again, I might be wrong.

So as not to be accused that I'm just doing some empty or diplomatic talk thing here, or that I see pocoworld through pink glasses, I can also confirm that, apart from being repeatedly assured about ongoing development from Slaven, I have seen a proof of the ongoing development.
Which leads me to think that the beta release doesn't have to be that far away - that's just my personal feeling, not based on any factual information.

[blakelyg]

Which leads me to think that the beta release doesn't have to be that far away - that's just my personal feeling, not based on any factual information.

LOL good answer. Factual info (about the ongoing development) but no factual info.

Seriously I assume you mean about a release for a beta.

Still good news that there is still ongoing development activity.

Thanks for the post.