PO / CO Improvement Question
There appears to be no general forum area, so I'm posting this here because I think other's may be interested in reading it. This is my response to the final question of a recent web-based questionnaire circulated by PO - What one specific improvement could Phase One make that would have the greatest impact on your satisfaction?
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While the following analysis clearly misses much of the complexities, I hope in outline it is accurate enough for you to recognise the situation it paints... I only include this much verbiage so that my suggestions for how PO can improve its customer satisfaction has a proper context.
At one time PO was probably the leading pioneer of RAW converters - CO still produces some the best high-end image output quality of any converter available today (the primary reason I purchased and continue to use the product). However times have changed, and technology pioneers rarely survive long enough to reap the rewards of opening up new markets. I perceive that PO is now having difficulties adjusting to what is quickly becoming a commodity RAW market place. Some very big software players have already entered the middle ground with products that will appeal to the burgeoning Canon 400D / Nikon D40 market as well as professionals looking to extend their suite of single-corporate-supplier imaging tools. Added to that are the growing plethora of cheaper independent tools that do an adequate job of RAW conversion using manufacture-supplied libraries. As yet no-one has rivaled CO's image quality, but it's only a matter of time before they do.
CO's potential audience is therefore being squeezed at the low-end, and threatened at the high-end by bleed-off into the corporate realm by users who are willing to trade a bit of image quality for ease-of-use (eg similarity to existing tools from same supplier) and the advantages of the huge resources available to the big players. It is becoming harder to compete in the middle-ground where customers are price-sensitive and compare (often meaningless) feature check-lists - but it also becoming ever more strategically important to have a product offering there in order to hook in new customers who may grow into high-end users, and also to maintain visibility as a leading industry player. And the high-end customers are becoming more demanding - they too want more value-for-money, additional professional features, and a concomitant level of post-sales service / customer care.
And here-in lies PO's current problem - while its technology is still impressive (both in terms of CO-v3, and the potential visible in CO-v4), it is distinctly lacking in customer care. Sure PO has a nice website and newsletter with some great articles by leading photographers, but that belies what many users perceive as an almost pathological tendency towards secrecy and isolation. PO's discussion forums nicely illustrate this point in the way the fiasco of CO-v4 beta launch was handled - many people spent many hours evaluating, finding bugs, and suggesting improvements, yet appreciative postings by PO staff can be counted on one hand. Rather than capitalising on all that goodwill in what should have been a major landmark in CO's development, instead PO has managed to leave a sour unloved taste in many a mouth. It really would have been so very easy to avoid this situation, and indeed I posted a message warning about this the day of the launch (note that I have no grudge, I'm just making observations).
... continued in next message due to seriouly lame forum software!...
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As a contrast it is worth examining how other small software developers do things. The most useful (and value-for-money) image tool I own is Imatch (http://photools.com/), which is written by a single person, Mario Westphal. He is a rare individual who combines an understanding of photography, software development, business management, and customer power. Mario spends a sizeable portion of his time personally responding to postings on his lively discussion forum (with help from senior users acting as moderators). When bugs are reported, an acknowledgement is immediately made, then regular progress reports & requests for info are posted until fixed. While he keeps some of the details of new features (particularly their release dates) secret, he has a published road map and actively engages with his userbase in conceiving & constructing improvements to IMatch. Through his effort he has built an industry strength product with a very loyal userbase who genuinely form (and importantly FEEL) part of the collaborative development process.
I'll repeat that last bit as it is one of the keys to survival - a Collaborative Development Process. Collectively, PO's users are a goldmine of development ideas, industry knowledge, and field experience. Collectively they are the company's greatest marketing asset, I suspect with a power and influence that could not be replicated on PO's current budgets. With a modicum of the right kind of care (by making them feel special and part of the process), they will quite freely evangelise the greatness of PO and their favourite software tool - CO. All small smart companies know this, and it only the short-lived arrogant, or long-lived vast corporations who choose not to harness this low-cost resource.
PO was has in the past been able to buck this partly because of the lack of alternative products, but that is no longer the case. Professional users now expect much more collaborative interaction from small technology providers. Those users who don't have usually taken the corporate route where vast budgets for marketing, R&D, usability labs, industry expert panels, etc eventually produce an inelegant but inescapable industry standard that get the job done, has a legion of support offerings (from service contract to self-help websites), and is produced by a company that's got a very long predicted future ahead of it. The direct competition then becomes so intense that the market will support only a very small number of competitors, and the cheap/shareware low-end flourishes on the back of the corporate's success. But that, as they say, is business... the question is, does PO have what it takes to remain a viable player?
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So in summary, what one specific improvement could Phase One make that would have the greatest impact on your satisfaction? Answer: truly discover what being a customer-focused organisation actually means, and have the courage to employ the necessary resources to achieve it. My satisfaction will come from being part of your collaborative development process, and from using the results - the very best software produced by a company likely to still be in business in 2012.0 -
Nice analysis, and gently but succintly stated.
It ain't the same old era, is it? We do collaborate these days. And EVERYBODY wants to be part of the process. Those that include this in their business plans seem to do well through all the apparent chaos that comes.
I hope you are listened to.
Neil0 -
Thanks Neil 😊
I wasn't going to comment further, but today as we hit 200 views of this thread I heard something on BBC radio that very much supports the case for a collaborative development process with us the users. I urge people to spend 30 mins listening to the programme, which forms part of (IMHO) the very best business-orientated output from the BBC...
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Eureka Democracy - Business innovation is vital for corporate survival, but is innovation best left to companies? Peter Day hears from the innovators who say that it is the users of goods and services who generate the best ideas, and now's the time to make innovation a truly open and collaborative process.
Contributors:- Soren Lund - Marketing director, LEGO
- Jason Railton - Member, Lego’s expert users’ group
- Professor Eric von Hippel - Head of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group, Sloan School of Business. Author : Democratising Innovation
- Richard Halkett - Director of policy & research, NESTA (National Foundation for Science, Technology & the Arts)
- Don Tapscott - Author : Wikinomics
- Joachim von Heimburg - Director Corporate R&D, Proctor & Gamble
- Dwayne Spradlin - Chief executive, Innocentive
The audio stream is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusi ... ness.shtml and will be moved into http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusi ... hive.shtml in 1 week's time ( 2007-10-18 ).0 -
Like your suggested program highlights, users are typically the best info for improvements/changes. I just bought a large tow-behind lawn vacuum,shredder/chipper unit for our 8.6 acres of property ... and the design has several stupid things, that could be cleared up easily, and make it heavy and hard to use unless you are a young strong male.
And it could be modified without much change or cash outlay ... and even talking about it with the company gets IMMEDIATE blather over the top of your comment about how MOST of the company's customer's don't see it as a problem, and you don't understand machinery (I grew up using and modifying machinery on a farm, thank you) ... and of course, that last resort of the truly stupid ... it's a FEATURE.
Has no benefit, but it is definitely a feature. Right.
I just hope P0/CO's new program comes out before it's irrelevant to my workflow in any way, shape, or form.
Neil0 -
I can only surmise that there is no general area in this forum for the very reason that it would be nothing more than a bashfest which serves of no value to anyone.
I really like your post and thought that I would jump in with some thoughts of my own. When I entered into the digital realm there were not many choices for RAW converters. If I recall right there was Phase One, Breezebrower and a couple other smaller ones that escape my memory. As a Canon user I also had the option of using their supplied converter DPP. I elected to go with C1 Pro and really have not ever regretted that purchase.
With the plethora of converters available now it is a different market. I have always been one to want to have some of the best software available. Quality is the utmost importance to me and my customers. I purchased two copies of Raw Shooter Premium so that I would be legal on all my pc’s. There was just no way that I could afford additional licenses of C1 Pro in the same fashion. In hindsight this came out to be a good thing as I got two Lightroom licenses as a result of the purchase of the RSP programs. If I recall right we bought these at their introductory price of 49.00. I also have DxO and Breezbrowser Pro in addition to ACR which is free inside of CS3. I also have other programs which are making my life easier such as iView Media Pro.
I have long been a supporter of C1 and there is no doubt in my mind that they are capable of putting out the best RAW conversions. I have always enjoyed the user interface though I know that some users have not adopted this opinion. It really is a matter of personal preference and what you get used to.
Enter the beta version for version 4. It would appear that Adobe set a quasi standard by releasing the beta to the general public. Whether or not this is a good thing is a matter of opinion. I really don’t have an issue with the way this was handled by Phase One.PO's discussion forums nicely illustrate this point in the way the fiasco of CO-v4 beta launch was handled - many people spent many hours evaluating, finding bugs, and suggesting improvements, yet appreciative postings by PO staff can be counted on one hand.
I would have to take issue with this as it virtually impossible for Phase One to go on a personally thank each poster. Could there have been more feedback from Phase One, absolutely but in the end this beta was put out there for the very reason of getting the feedback. If you need to be stroked for each post that you make that has a suggestion in it then you need to revisit your personality. I certainly don’t mean this in a bad way. I think the message that I am trying to convey here is that if you are willing to post your suggestions you should be able to do so without needing constant feedback.
I regularly update my camera(s) and I do agree that Phase One is, without a doubt, the slowest to respond to the marketplace with updates to their software. I have always tried to wrap my mind around this. Even smaller converters like Breezebrowser, which is pretty much a one man show, is able to respond to the marketplace incredibly fast. I used to come on here and complain like many others but it really served no value beyond making me feel good having vented on them. I have thought that maybe they are just not that interested in the RAW converter market beyond providing the program for the backs that they sell. If you do not have the manpower to address the camera updates from the other manufacturers either address that or consider selling this part of your business to someone who will. I do mean that in a malicious manner but for those of us sitting here with new cameras that we cannot use C1 on is frustrating when you see the other guys being able to do it.
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I want nothing more than to be able to download my RAW files and be able to only start C1 to do my conversions. The bar is or has been set high and only time will tell if Phase One is going to be tall enough to reach that bar. Without dissecting the whole LE versus Pro versions at this point, I have kind of become accustomed to being able to adjust the luminance of a particular color using one of the other RAW converters. I use this only as an example of the feature rich converters that are available.
If we assume that C1 has or will have one of the best converters in the market (which I don’t think is a stretch) then what do you put in one program over the other, LE versus Pro. I don’t have any qualms paying the extra dollars for the Pro version as long as I am getting value for my money. However, in this market where there are choices and many of them, if you are just giving us a refitted version 3.x with a new interface you will fail. Based on the current pricing where one is 99.00 and the other is 499.00 you have to offer a substantial number of options in the Pro version that over and above what is available in the LE. I don’t mind paying the 500.00 for this program as long as I feel that I am getting value for my money. My personal opinion is that this is a very wide split in the pricing structure that makes it tough to satisfy the requirement difference between the two.
I am not sure what Phase One really wants their RAW converter to be. Is the agenda to have it compete with Lightroom with all of the library type functionality, keywording, etc? This comes to the point of corporate transparency. We, as the user group, don’t know what you want this to be. So when people come on this forum and complain about one thing or another they are making certain assumptions on your behalf about where they think that you think the program is going. From what I can glean from your newsletters the product direction is being decided by Phase One and a handful of selected professional photographers. If you are going to make the beta a full public production some response to their posted issues need to happen. This is more than just stroking someone’s ego but really giving feedback on the suggestions. This could be done on a weekly basis with an overview of what has been done or will be added to the spec list based on what has been suggested. I would hope that when it comes time to release the Pro version of 4 that you will only make it available to those that have previously purchased the Pro version. I even more strongly hope that this is not going to be left in the hands of those select few professional photographers that are the chosen ones by you. You made a big deal in your last newsletter about choosing 3 pro shooters to assist you. A whole 3, wow. I’m sure that there are probably more but you give the impression that these 3 folks are helping you set the future of the product.
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This is an evolving market and if you don’t listen to your customer base you won’t have one to listen to. You can have the best product in the world but if you alienate your customers they will leave, even for an inferior product. I know that the head office of Phase One is in Europe and that there is a different way of doing business on different continents. North America is one large market that you are on the verge of alienating, in my opinion. I urge you to become more open and transparent with the user base. There is a general mindset, which I certainly don’t subscribe to, that Adobe can do no wrong. Certainly they have economies of scale to shift manpower around to address the changes in the market. They do seem to be the ones that are setting the height of the bar that everyone else is having to jump to.
To close I would like to make it clear that anything that I have said here is not to just to complain but to hopefully make it clear that I, as a long time user, want you to continue to succeed and thrive. I really like what I have seen so far in the beta 4 and the speed is a very welcome improvement. There are some cosmetics that I would like to see changed but most of these have been addressed by other user’s posts. I can only hope for greater things when we finally get to see the Pro version.
I am done now!
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Just a little addendum as a marker of how far we have come since my first post.
PO have just released CO4 beta 2 and have removed all the contents of the beta 1 forum. I can sort of understand why, but it makes it much harder for us beta testers to compare notes on what we wrote about beta1.
So I asked for the beta 1 forum to be put back in read-only mode, or for someone to email me all the messages I posted there. Rather than even having the decency to answer me, my message was unceremoniously deleted.
How does this make me feel do you think? Not angry in the least... just really sad that PO has such a poor understanding of the most important thing in business - how to treat its customers.0
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