271–280 of 393 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simply put: that's a risk you take for being an early adopter. Deal with it, there's a good chance it will happen with any/all early adoption startup products out there.
"... an early adopter" Hardly. Sparrow has been out for a few years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are, when you say "hey big companies, stop waving money at these guys". However much you think you're offering to Sparrow's developers, it's presumably less than Google was offering.
Can you point to me where I said that? My posts have been to the effect of "hey little companies, if you're open to being waved to by big companies then let me know before I buy into your company's offerings."
There. Now you don't have to ask them to disclose things anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really feel OK asking big companies not to outbid you for other people's work? Why is it OK to demand a ceiling to a developer's compensation?
To answer both of your questions: I'm not asking companies to "outbid" me for people's work and I'm not demanding a ceiling for their compensation. Rather, I'm asking the developer's why drop their work on the application entirely? Why not continue the development at Google a la Instagram? Moreover, the real discontent is more so with seeing a talented group being bought out and not encouraged to grow on their own. I…
I would hope at least that they don't eventually pull the app. Some of us actually prefer the native experience to the webapp one.
This is getting extremely frustrating. Sparrow is a fabulous email client both for iOS and Mac. I love and use both daily and this is fairly devastating. I was really looking forward to the products development, growth, and future releases. To read this announcement and hear that they won't be working on their apps but on Google projects is sad. To bigger companies: chill out with the "acquihires." If anything, do wh…
As far as I recall, Instagram kept working on their product because the US Government required them to pending regulatory approval -- which could come as soon as August:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/zuck_your_instagram_is...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A great point. But still no excuse to have their existing customers left behind. All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google. Where does that leave me? The biggest concern I have with this is the same thing that happened to Tweetie: the one company that should have scoope…
> All of their customers (myself included) invested in the product because it was good, because it worked extremely well, and because it solved problems. I didn't invest in their work at Google Even worse, I invested in Sparrow because I vastly prefer desktop apps like Sparrow to web apps like GMail. That's sad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you point to me where I said that? My posts have been to the effect of "hey little companies, if you're open to being waved to by big companies then let me know before I buy into your company's offerings."
Here is a clue for you. When a startup offers you its products for $9.99 or $2.99, they are open to be bought by big companies. There. Now you don't have to ask them to disclose things anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And now you've gotten lesson #1 on why F/OSS solutions have one huge advantage over their proprietary counterparts: If the original developers of a F/OSS app decide to drop it, you have choices. In the best case, another group of devs may simply fork the project and keep it going, or you ('you' in the general sense here) may choose to bring development in-house, or contract with a 3rd party to maintain and upgrade th…
Yes, F/OSS has that huge advantage... but even though I'm an F/OSS advocate, I think it's naive to ignore the economics of such projects. They have a much harder time getting off the ground, especially those aimed at a mass market to which you'll have trouble selling a support plan. There are business models, but they're more complicated and don't provide as much income. I do wish companies that abandon projects woul…
Agreed. But to their credit, Google have some history of open-sourcing things[1][2][3][4], so maybe there's a chance that this product will be released as well. At least one can hope...
[1]: http://code.google.com/opensource/
[2]: http://code.google.com/opensource/projects.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who bought Sparrow on the day it was released - and is in love with it - this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them. The core of my disappointment is the expectation of future development that comes with buying into a relatively new piece of software. I didn't buy Sparrow thinking I was paying for a piece of software that was feature-complete. I bought Sparrow mail a…
Ho, stop! When you buy a product, you pay for what it is, not fir what it can be. This whole idea of free features for ever, is not economially viable in the first place. It only works as long as they can keep getting new customers at a high rate. But at some point, that will slow down. Then they can either build a whole new product, or try charging current customers again. My point being: you cant pay a fixed one ti…
So here a buyer had an expectation of future development and upgrade, some of them perhaps to be paid for. They invested time and attention learning a new interface and functionality, thinking those upgrades would provide returns on that time invested. Investments like that are how communities are built.
I know squadoosh about the small app market or Sparrow's marketing. But if there are a lot of buyers with expectations like that, then I think you have to speak to those when you are selling or yeah, there is an implicit agreement there. If Sparrow disclosed future plans or roadmaps then the agreement moves toward explicit.
Such obligations aren't enforceable, and what's customary within a market is obviously fuzzy. But that doesn't mean those obligations don't exist or aren't ethical.
Again, I know nothing about this case -- but if there was some understanding that the company would this, that or the other, then it is worth wondering about the ethics of a large company doing an acquisition, to hire people, in the knowledge that the deal breaks some tacit deal with a community.