Omni Group Layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#21

Post by navait » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

I recently signed up for OmniFocus cloud, should I be worried? It’s a fantastic product.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#22

Post by paulryanrogers » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

yaacov wrote: post #14

I discovered Omni yesterday when League of Legends dumped 20 gB of text logs on my brother’s old MacBook, eating up all available disk space and crashing it. He asked me for help. I didn’t know what was taking up all his disk space so I searched for a tool to help me and found OmniDiskSweeper. Unlike the MacOS builtin tools that try to hide the underlying file system, OmniDiskSweeper actually helped me understand the…

WinDirStat is similarly nice for those on Windows, or JDiskReport for cross-platform

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#23

Post by lozaning » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

yaacov wrote: post #14

I discovered Omni yesterday when League of Legends dumped 20 gB of text logs on my brother’s old MacBook, eating up all available disk space and crashing it. He asked me for help. I didn’t know what was taking up all his disk space so I searched for a tool to help me and found OmniDiskSweeper. Unlike the MacOS builtin tools that try to hide the underlying file system, OmniDiskSweeper actually helped me understand the…

I use WinDirStat for the same thing on windows. Lets you pick and then scan a drive and then gives you a graphical view where the bigger the file the larger its block is proportionally to the other files.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#24

Post by krackers » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

yaacov wrote: post #14

I discovered Omni yesterday when League of Legends dumped 20 gB of text logs on my brother’s old MacBook, eating up all available disk space and crashing it. He asked me for help. I didn’t know what was taking up all his disk space so I searched for a tool to help me and found OmniDiskSweeper. Unlike the MacOS builtin tools that try to hide the underlying file system, OmniDiskSweeper actually helped me understand the…

I'm partial to DaisyDisk for it's wonderful graphical view

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#25

Post by thruhiker » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

I'm sorry to hear this. In a subscription model world, Omni stand out in producing very high quality one time purchase software. I love OmniGraffle! Such a great product once you learn it.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#26

Post by pavlov » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

worthless-trash wrote: post #19

gowld wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a great opportunity to build a Windows alternative. Omni software is deeply Mac, using Mac UX/UI components that don't exist elsewhere. If they GTK/QT/JSed it, it wouldn't be Omni and it wouldn't be worth $50-$250 a pop.

Are you saying using mac components alone gives it the $50-$100 a pop value, if so thats some quality brainwashing going on.

I’ve been paying for OmniGraffle since 2004 or so and also bought licenses at various employers. The price has never been a problem.

But if it wasn’t a native Mac Cocoa app, I would never use it. A lot of OmniGraffle’s value comes from UI that abides by platform guidelines and the high-quality rendering and integrations enabled by being a native app rather than a lowest common denominator cross-platform port.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#27

Post by macintux » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

worthless-trash wrote: post #19

gowld wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a great opportunity to build a Windows alternative. Omni software is deeply Mac, using Mac UX/UI components that don't exist elsewhere. If they GTK/QT/JSed it, it wouldn't be Omni and it wouldn't be worth $50-$250 a pop.

Are you saying using mac components alone gives it the $50-$100 a pop value, if so thats some quality brainwashing going on.

The difference between using software developed explicitly and exclusively for the Mac (and/or iOS) platform vs a cross-platform application is often quite dramatic.

Omni in particular makes extremely clean, friendly applications that feel aligned with the platform.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#28

Post by hinkley » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #8

tinyhouse wrote: post #2

Is this the company behind omniGraffle? I love their product. I don't know what other products they have, but it doesn't sound like the current situation should have an effect on them, at least not yet. Sounds like they have been struggling regardless.

OmniWeb was my favorite browser when it was around.

Which was originally the web browser on NeXT computers.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#29

Post by lozaning » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #9

thiagocesar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an amazing product. I cannot afford the price tag. I wonder how many more people would buy it if it was just a little bit cheaper.

I assume that 30 years of research has taught them that they won't get double the customers at half of the price.

Way easier to get away with finding half of your existing customers that can pay double than to cut your prices by half and double your entire sales funnel.

Or at least this was the wisdom imparted on me by a long time sales manager for a large VAR.

Re: Omni Group Layoffs

#30

Post by blihp » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 4:32 AM UTC

thiagocesar wrote: post #4

saagarjha wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, OmniGaffle is one of the many "Omni-" products they make.

It’s an amazing product. I cannot afford the price tag. I wonder how many more people would buy it if it was just a little bit cheaper.

Not nearly enough... that's the problem: the business models that produced products like that won't be around for much longer as the price gets closer and closer to 'free'. The economics of mobile are dismal for paid productivity software.