Usual Disclaimer: Before I go any further, I just want to write, I have not seen v10, nor was I involved in v10, this is purely a discussion of personal/professional experience working inside Actinic and now being outside
My past articles I have written were to bring up discussions/thoughts of what Actinic should bring into their next major release. However as I have realised now, we have missed out on the most important part, At what point should you release a package which everyone is waiting for.
Working for Datix, we have just released version 10 after them releasing 9.3a Sp4 (Scary thought that both companies are working/releasing version 10). So I can see from both sides, Version 10 of Datix is going well, so I was pondering the question: When should the Actinic Towers release version 10 or Have they already missed the chance?
Why did I say: did they miss the chance?
Let me explain
Christmas is only 5 months away now, so store owners should think about setting up their site for Christmas or the sales before Christmas. A completely new software, should first be sent out in a private beta, once the developer/QA in Actinic are happy, then they would send the beta out to a handful of clients. This can range from 2 weeks to 2 months, it all depends on the software and the complex issues which are arisen from the beta program. So after this “beta period“, comes the “General Release“.
Now all store owners would need to download the software, install it, let it copy over your live site, so you can demo it. Fix what the Actinic upgrader missed out, while testing on the test site. You should also read the release notes, see what new features are there and how do you use them. This will all take time. I haven’t even mentioned any of the patches that will arise when a new version is released, Naturally for all softwares, there will be issues in the beginning which gets ironed out in patches released shortly after.
So after you are happy with everything and refreshed your site with the brand new version and also trained your fellow collegues then how long do you have left to work on your shop for Christmas?
This question is very subjective, different people will have different answers, but the point of this discussion is for everyone to benefit from version 10, should the release date be earlier than now?
As usual I welcome all comments onto this thread with your personal opinions
