Can we please have some update info?

Discussion about: tracktion.com
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

AD80 wrote:I think if I was a developer I would announce maybe 6 month ball park ETA's. Theres no way I could miss my mark by more than 6 months right?!
Wrong.

IIRC LongWait was originally going to be WinXP, and it was going to have all kinds of new candy. Now it's speculated that it wont happen until 2006, and practically all the things that were supposed to make Longhorn so unique have been relegated to the maybe "part of a service pack" pile.

I'm thinking Longwait actually may finally be the only Windows release ever that didn't require more hardware than most people have at release time. We'll all be using DualCore 4ghz machines by the time it is released and the "optimum setup" will seem like old news. :)

:)
Someone shot the food. Remember: don't shoot food!
Top

Post

valley wrote:
AD80 wrote:I think if I was a developer I would announce maybe 6 month ball park ETA's. Theres no way I could miss my mark by more than 6 months right?!
Wrong.

IIRC LongWait was originally going to be WinXP, and it was going to have all kinds of new candy. Now it's speculated that it wont happen until 2006, and practically all the things that were supposed to make Longhorn so unique have been relegated to the maybe "part of a service pack" pile.

I'm thinking Longwait actually may finally be the only Windows release ever that didn't require more hardware than most people have at release time. We'll all be using DualCore 4ghz machines by the time it is released and the "optimum setup" will seem like old news. :)

:)
Hah thats right. I forgot about Longwait. Luckily our software and hardware keeps advancing without our OS having to. So I'm not too worried about the long wait for that. I just hope they finish copying all the good OSX stuff by the time it comes out :D. Imagine XP on a 4ghz dual core :shock:. Thats gonna fly!!
Image
Top

Post

ModuLR wrote:anyone ever see Groundhog's Day? That movie was funny... :lol:
Anyone ever see "Pretty Woman" - that was entertaining too.

The male lead was an american corporate type who bought up small independant businesses with a view to "neutralising" them on behalf of the big boys.

Seriously though, if Mackie really believed in the future of Tracktion I suspect we would all see them:

1. Put Jules in charge of a TEAM of developers (fancy a new job, ModuLR 8) ) so that the job gets done (the big boys bring out updates every year, even when not needed, in order to keep the product on everyone's lips)

2. Get to work on "product placement" by getting the Tracktion brand "out there" (i.e. press releases, teasers, and direct advertisements)

Sorry for being a bit pessimistic about this, but it does worry me that I can't see any evidence of this commitment. One has to wonder what Mackie are up to...

Mackie is a BIG player, pitted against the likes of Digidesign. They have an mega-million budget and advertise in Sound on Sound (etc) with full page colour every month. So what's holding them back?
Top

Post

Maybe they're waiting until Tracktion matures a little more before they really start the marketing campain. I mean I was using T1 for a long time before Mackie. Its pretty old news now. It would make more sense for them to wait for the new version with more features. If they were marketing right now everybody would say "what no loop recording?" "what no ghost clips?" etc.

I got faith in Mackie and T2. Not sure about Mackie and T3 tho. :ud:
Image
Top

Post

HI

Just picking up some thoughts around development - I don't imagine Tracktion sells anymore than perhaps a few dozen copies a week?

Even if it ran into triple figures I don't think that would create a budget for a 'Team' of developers; I am thinking about Propellerheads Reason now, a pretty big seller that I probably leaves Tracktion well behind in terms of sales, resources and development personel and look how slow they are!

If you consider the BIG names like Logic, Cakewalk and Stienberg - look at how many people are credited for the actual coding, it tends to be several and again I say even these programs might take a year between Major updates and that is with half a dozen coders working around the clock for months!

I think the trade off with smaller projects is simply that one person can only do so much and major changes are unlikely because they tend to work on updating rather thasn wholesale changes/enhancements - one reason being it allows them to be visible to their customer base.

If Mackie put a half dozen people (maybe they have?) into speeding up development of Tracktion every one would be crying in two years time, Why? because it would be £/$600 and competing with the big boys, what other reason would there be to put MAJOR R&D into something unless there was a very yummy payoff -I don't imagine Mackie are a registered charity?

Flipper.
Top

Post

headquest wrote:the big boys bring out updates every year, even when not needed, in order to keep the product on everyone's lips
No they don't. They bring out new versions every year to bring in the revenue needed to pay for their team of developers. Fruity is pretty much a one man show from the programming side (reflex notwithstanding), and IL survive just fine.

Regards Digidesign, I'm not about to slam Mackie (despite once being an RCF fan ;) ), but I think it's fair to say the Digidesign and Mackie are not really in the same market. Digidesign works on more of niche with high margins approach.
Someone shot the food. Remember: don't shoot food!
Top

Post

original flipper wrote:I don't imagine Mackie are a registered charity?
They aren't? Damnit! I was planning to write off T2 against tax. <pout>
Someone shot the food. Remember: don't shoot food!
Top

Post

Since everybody is speculating either negative (Jules has given up, T2 isn't coming) or positive (T2 is going to be great, everybody just chill) here's a scenario to consider.

Imagine, if you will, that Jules is no longer working alone, that Mackie *has* hired a few more developers, and Jules is leading them toward T2 release, with everybody working under airtight NDAs. Jules has therefore had time to polish up JUCE for both Win and Mac platforms, architect T2 feature sets, and mentor the other developers in coding with JUCE. It is very likely that Mackie is now completely driving the T2 feature list, and probably conducting a very hush-hush in-house beta right now.

When the time is right (after the recent buzz from the big 3 quiets down) and T2 is relatively feature complete and stable, Mackie will blow up T2 with a media blitz (leading up to NAMM), and grab mindshare and market share all at once, completely gutting all the "dumbed down" low end big boy packages in the process. My guess is this will happen just before the holidays: Late November or early December.

We have seen how the big boys have already copied some T1 features and concepts. Mackie would be stupid to tip their hand by pre-announcing T2 features at this point. Doing so would simply give the competition more time to implement their versions, and steal the thunder from T2.

Truly innovative market-breaking products are gestated in complete secrecy. The smart money avoids the announcement and media blitz until the baby is ready to pop out. Remember Dean Kamen and the Segway? Remember the months and months of breathless hype about revolutionizing personal transportation, blah, blah, but they wouldn't show a single picture? Well, the Segway is now basically just a really expensive scooter for the conspicuously rich. It didn't live up to the advance hype. They got the secrecy part right but the media timing all wrong.

So I'm looking forward to T2, when ever it gets here. And because Jules is still the "head" behind the code, I can be confident that it will have the same usability, stability, and "fun factor" that T1 offers.
Top

Post

bithead wrote: Truly innovative market-breaking products are gestated in complete secrecy. The smart money avoids the announcement and media blitz until the baby is ready to pop out. Remember Dean Kamen and the Segway? Remember the months and months of breathless hype about revolutionizing personal transportation, blah, blah, but they wouldn't show a single picture? Well, the Segway is now basically just a really expensive scooter for the conspicuously rich. It didn't live up to the advance hype. They got the secrecy part right but the media timing all wrong.
Ah. You mean that 'Ginger' thing which would 'revolutionize the human future'? Don't you think it looks like something that every kindergarten should equip with one? :lol:
Image
Top

Post

bithead wrote:Since everybody is speculating either negative (Jules has given up, T2 isn't coming) or positive (T2 is going to be great, everybody just chill) here's a scenario to consider.....
Thats the best speculation I've read in a long time Bithead :cool:! Much better than my speculation...(Tracktion got bought out by Apple and will drop PC support)
Image
Top

Post

hey! that's what the monkeys ride to fetch jules coffee... :lol:
ModuLR / Radio
Top

Post

bithead wrote:Imagine, if you will, that Jules is no longer working alone, that Mackie *has* hired a few more developers, and Jules is leading them toward T2 release
that would make him the Chief Software Architect... <shudder>

:D
Top

Post

See, bithead's speculation was educated and, in my estimation, precise. This is what we should be hearing.

Now lets drop it and work with what we have!

RonC
Top

Post

ModuLR wrote:hey! that's what the monkeys ride to fetch jules coffee... :lol:
How do you know...?... are you already part of Jules' covert crack squad? :lol:

Seriously though, I feel my inner optimist trying to resurface round about now 8)
Top

Post

anyone ever see Groundhog's Day? That movie was funny... :lol:
ModuLR / Radio
Top
Post Reply

Return to “Tracktion”