NI strikes again (from their web site):

ABSYNTH 2.0 will be available June 27th, 2003, in stores worldwide.



Long time since I stopped taking NI's marketing shit (espec. release dates) seriously, so I kind of expected this. Products from NI come when they come.

Better that, than releasing buggy versions (and I know what I'm talking about )
'Tick

If Reaktor 4 was as late as it is; Absynth 1.0 (PC) was as late as it was...why should anyone expect otherwise for future development from them? More precisely, the whole ship (NI) appears to be running late. The real problem is that they do not communicate to the customers, until they start getting the nasties sent their way...shame and a sin.

I knew they would be late and got flamed on their site for saying so.

I agree with Tick- better to be late than throw out buggy software. However, they are quickly gaining a reputation for throwing out buggy software, anyway. Remember: we are the system testers. So, add a few months after the projected date for a few quick-version updates!

I feel I should chip in with a (sort of) defence of poor (okay - rich) old, maligned NI...

I too have been anxiously checking their site every couple of days for the release date of Absynth 2 to be confirmed, and yes - it's later than they said it would be. So what ? I work in IT for a financial company (UK), developing the systems needed to administer the products the company sells (pensions, mainly) - and guess what ? Stuff is always, always late. (Unless it's a legislative thing, in which case it's on time... but sh*t).

Dates are set by (spit) managers. And then timetables for design, coding, testing etc. are worked backwards from that date. And then problems crop up, there's not enough contingency, and deadlines are missed. Boo hoo... it's the company that suffers - not the consumer - as they can't sell new business (or new software units, or whatever).

Go play with something else for a few weeks and chill. Is anticipation not better than having (or something) ?

The question for me is not when Absynth 2 comes (I can wait), but I wonder with which copy-protection it comes: with the call & responce bullshit or not? With c/r the update is for me uninteressing. I don't buy Atmosphere therefore too.
First C/R, then TCPA, Palladium, no thanks!

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I too have been anxiously checking their site every couple of days for the release date of Absynth 2 to be confirmed

Ahh so it is you that has been burning out the NI server then

Quote:

Absynth 2.0 released on June 27th

ok, so judging from there track record of announcing dates, it should be out by christmas.

There's a lesson here, folks; simply IGNORE release dates. I can understand that it's difficult for those who are awaiting fixes for their issues, but in the end, you'll be happier if you don't think to much about it and do the best with what you have. The software will be released when it's ready, and getting upset about it doesn't do you any good.

I don't care what the excuses are...if you release a date, you stick to it. If you can't get the product to the point where it's ready for distribution by that day, you have lost a great deal of credibility. It's unprofessional beyond belief.

It's ok to do it now because there is nothing that does what ABSYNTH does.... but when there is, we'll see how important it is that they stick to the release date!

dano

Due dates are the funniest thing that the business world has to offer, with the possible exception of combovers. I know that in our business, due dates are selected at random by managers (usually decided after the best time to have DONE the project by and giving the people who do the work not enough time) who promptly go on holidays, not giving the project staff enough details to even start their work. It's funny when the devs on the other project talk about their deadlines. It's not funny when the deadline is mine.

Who here that is bitching about release dates and not coming out on time is actually a software developer, and has done commercial products, please raise your hands? That's what I thought.....

Release dates are set *BY MARKETTING* not by the guys programming the unit a lot of the times! Given how many different VSTi hosts are out there, and then making sure EVERYTHING works in ALL those hosts, is a LOT of work. Believe me, the release dates are not missed just to piss you off. Getting complex software out the door is a feat in itself, as I think any of the developers on here will attest to.

I lose respect for products that are shipped with tons of bugs because they were 'forced' into shipping too soon, not because it's late.

Devon

There are two types of IT projects, these are:

1- Late Projects; and

2- Complete Catastrophes.

To paraphrase a famous Vulcan: It isn't logical, but it is often true.

spmadmin wrote:

NI strikes again (from their web site): ABSYNTH 2.0 will be available June 27th, 2003, in stores worldwide. Long time since I stopped taking NI's marketing shit (espec. release dates) seriously, so I kind of expected this. Products from NI come when they come.

This explains why after a couple months of being out-of-stock in the region's two Guitar Centers (Cleveland and Pittsburgh), all-of-the-sudden new copies of Absynth 1.x showed up. I thought it strange to see them arrive in late April if version 2 was on-track for May 9 as originally promised.

Being a software engineer, I understand missing deadlines for quality reasons... remember the mantra:
(1) working software
(2) on time
(3) within budget

"Choose up to two".

However, their marketing people should've given notice before now (update the release date or whenever)... it sounds like Reaktor may slip a week in some cases, too.

On the bright side, if you don't need anything in 2.x, you can avoid the probable challenge-response copy protection (Absynth 1.x used CD-based copy protection, if I remember right)...

Or, download trials and see if you can do what you want with Rhino, z3ta+ or Crystal instead... For the price of Absynth you can get all three! In my mind Absynth is becoming increasingly irrelevant, where two months ago I *really* wanted it.

Doug

It doesn't matter to me who does what job and who made the promise.

If an airline says your flight leaves today after you have prepaid for tickets and it actually doesn't leave until tomorrow or they over-book, you usually get a nights accomodation and a free ticket to where-ever they fly.

My point is that if you make promises you can't keep, you compensate your customers for the inconvenience and you minimise this by doing good business. Marketing not talking to developers is bad business. As a paying customer, I don't care that Joe Blow in marketing didn't talk to his counterpart in Software Development.

Why is that some companies can meet their deadlines???? Because they use good business practices. Have you ever tried cusomer support at NI?....don't even get me started with that!

Anyway, I won't say anymore.....I think as soon as a developer that equals NI in their product range comes about, NI will have to change these crazy business practices that they seam to shamelessly employ or they WILL turn to dust.

dano

Hello Dano,

The analogy about the airline does have its limits. The airline is not doing anything radically new with the flight. There are fewer unknowns. The problem with software development is the unknown.

Some people post angry messages about software vendors using them as beta-testers for production releases. The problems with the software are very real and inconvenience a lot of people.

The truth is: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and "Software Engineering" are all in beta! A fair analogy for these fields would be 16th century Physics. An unfair analogy would be witchcraft or alchemy.

Cheers,

KHC
Be-Cool Please buy the software that you use.
http://www.be-cool.org/

lets not hear anymore of the old ::rather late than buggy:: that is a big fat excuse. how many times can ni get it wrong ?

and who cares if the marketing people set the date ? it is still ni and they should know better

almost everything they do runs late. and not just a little late, a lot late. and even worse than that it is full of bugs and broken promises anyway

ni deserve their bad reputation and all the flaming on their forum. they are bad news. again i say to people who dispute these words: go read the ni forum

and also last time i mentioned this someone says :h, but company forums are always full of people who complain:: no, this is not true !!!! you look just here at kvr at rgc and sonic reality and traktion and many others - you will see many happy people talking nicely to the developers.

not so with ni. they are greedy liars

KHC

Quote:

The analogy about the airline does have its limits. The airline is not doing anything radically new with the flight. There are fewer unknowns. The problem with software development is the unknown.

Perhaps the analogy doesn't fit exactly, but the point wasn't to reflect upon emerging technologies vs. those 100 years old. I was merely pointing out thier lack of concern for the impact of the statements they make.

Servicing the customer should be the number one concern and although the software industry is truly in it's infancy, nobody on the board at NI approves release dates without knowing the concequences of an overly optimistic schedule! So why do they do it??? Because they can. There is no one company that has the strangle hold on virtual instruments like they do. What's the alternative to Reaktor, ABSYNTH,etc....

Your point taken though.

dano

To those who seem to be miserable with NI, their products, bugs, or late ship dates I would suggest that you stop using the products. There is competition out there. I don't consider a later ship date for a piece of music software to be the end of the world.

Robert

NI is a joke. I work for Sam Ash and their rep came into to demo the new software coming out and i had some questions to ask him and it seems that i knew more than him about their own products.

Jay

NI is a joke???

what the phuck you guys been smoking?

i use a lot of their softwares, no complaints here!

perhaps some of you folks should go back to your hardware synths if you can't figure out how to make a computer behave...

synthman

We should be thanking Native Instruments for sharing THEIR creations with us instead of bitching about release dates and such. They will let us have it whenever they feel like giving it to us.

Hello Dano,

danielmm wrote:

KHC Perhaps the analogy doesn't fit exactly, but the point wasn't to reflect upon emerging technologies vs. those 100 years old. I was merely pointing out thier lack of concern for the impact of the statements they make. Servicing the customer should be the number one concern and although the software industry is truly in it's infancy, nobody on the board at NI approves release dates without knowing the concequences of an overly optimistic schedule! So why do they do it??? Because they can. There is no one company that has the strangle hold on virtual instruments like they do. What's the alternative to Reaktor, ABSYNTH,etc.... Your point taken though. dano

Thank you for your message. You are absolutely right about annoucing the overly optimistic shedule. NI did not manage customer expectations very well. I must admit that I was looking forward to having Absynth on OSX running this month (I was surprised when they annouced that it would be an upgrade). One of my main motives for buying a PC was to get my NI plugs back in operation. I really missed Absynth, B4, FM7, Pro-52, and Pro-53.

When it's all boiled down, I really like the NI products. Being without them for over 4 months has really taught me to appreciate them more.

I must be honest, I am not being inconvenienced in any way because NI missed their announced deadline. I only work on music as a hobby.

I apologise for being disrespectful of those who do need the new versions. I should be more thoughtful of the people who use the NI products to earn a living, and who really need the fixes, and new features, that the new versions will bring.

With respect and regards,

KHC

Quote:

perhaps some of you folks should go back to your hardware synths if you can't figure out how to make a computer behave...

Ummm, not even sure how to take this or what to say other than nobody is questioning the quality of the product. They have great stuff.

I happen to use both hardware and software and got my first synth over 20 years ago. I know how my computer behaves. What point are you actually trying to make because you sound like you are 12 years old????

dano

well...its worth the wait

doh...double post

"If you announce a ship date you should ship"
What a crock of poop. If you want buggy, possibly fatal mistake ridden software then what can be said? I don't and I'll wait for the release of cleaner code.

As a former project manager I can tell you that most everything is driven by marketing. Get the name out fast and make sure people are ready to buy what you are selling, even if what you are selling isn't complete.

A demo can be designed to work fine on one particular computer and still have miserable problems on most computers in general. That is the nature of programming. It sucks that so many things are marketing driven, with the occasional management problems thrown in, but you can't fault any company that won't sell you a shite program.

When users of Reaktor were unable to initally get a copy before retail copies were available that was a terrible blunder imo but not fatal even if I had to reschedule a lot of people's time and lost time that would have been better spent elsewhere. But I just as soon see N.I. get Absynth 2 right rather than get it out to market buggy, at which point all the "meet the deadline" people would jump into "why did they release such a buggy program" mode. That kind of thing has happened so much it is almost funny. It seems if the name Native Instruments or Steinberg are mentioned in conjunction with VSTi there are people ready to pounce on everything bad there is to think. They can't win.

If you want to be upset, spend some time with chronically ill or homeless people and ask them what they are concerned about. It will put a whole new perspective on software being late. Sometimes I wonder if we realize how well most of us have it, even the people who can't afford to buy a lot of the stuff available (like me). We still get great free synths, we obviously have internet connections and either a computer or access to one. That is so much more than most people in the world.

Unless you had a lot of time and money tied up on a Absynth 2 project then chill out because that's about the only reason anyone should have in regards to late software. If you have Absynth 1 it's still very good. If you don't buy it and get the free upgrade.

Symbiant wrote:

well...its worth the wait

i think i remeber hearing that you already have a beta copy

damn you beta testers

well, i too am waiting for the update, but i consider it being some kind of obsession for a few of us!

i mean, when you have absynth 2, you'll sure wait for #3 and so on...

why not be patient and enjoy playing the existing versions instead of risking to be deceived when it eventually comes out with so much buggy new fetures???!!!

and most of all, i think we are all trapped in the big companies policy, which is basically annoncing an awaited product way before release and virtually creating a huge demand for it, that will lead to mass posting on the internet (like this one) = free publicity ??