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Sparrow acquired by Google

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Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#341

Post by jsz0 »

lloeki wrote: post #213
rglover wrote: post #199

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.

That's exactly why they had to kill it. If you don't use the web app you don't see GMail ads.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#342

Post by shinratdr »

jonknee wrote: post #331
shinratdr wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't? You don't get to abandon your users? Not without repercussions? No, you don't. Was there any purpose to asking that three times besides to emphasize that it should be read in the most condescending way possible? > What repercussions would those be, angry anonymous message board guy? My name is Ross Woodruff, I live in Toronto, Ontario. I use my shinratdr name everywhere. I don't try to be anonymous, I'm…

> So long as they stay in the corporate world from now on. Should they switch back to a startup, plenty of users will hear "from the Sparrow team" in the future and avoid the product because they can't trust it will be available & useful for them in them when they need it. > They sold out their reputation in the iOS & OS X software world for jobs at Google. I hope that you're right and it was worth it. From what we'v…

> No one will care that a couple years ago the same people sold awesome software for really cheap and lots of people used it.

People remember when you screw up their workflow. Devs love to ignore that but it's true. The price, at least after the purchase is complete, is near irrelevant. I paid $10 for a Better Finder Rename and they've been around for decades. I paid $10 for HyperDock, I paid $15 for SoundStudio. $10 for Printopia. None of them have abandoned their app.

You disagree and think it's an over the top reaction. That's fine. It also makes it blindingly obvious that you're a dev first and a user second. As a user first, especially an OS X user, I only support devs that support me. Not worth getting used to a new program otherwise.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#343

Post by shinratdr »

tptacek wrote: post #330
shinratdr wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't? You don't get to abandon your users? Not without repercussions? No, you don't. Was there any purpose to asking that three times besides to emphasize that it should be read in the most condescending way possible? > What repercussions would those be, angry anonymous message board guy? My name is Ross Woodruff, I live in Toronto, Ontario. I use my shinratdr name everywhere. I don't try to be anonymous, I'm…

They sold out their reputation in the iOS & OS X software world for jobs at Google Oh no!

> I really shouldn't drink and comment.

Indeed.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#344

Post by andrewfelix »

rglover wrote: post #46

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…

If I was Mac user I'd be pissed. As a Windows user I'm looking forward to what they can bring to GMail.

Sparrow and Coda are two programs I've always wanted to use regularly.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#345

Post by technoslut »

mindcrime wrote: post #249
rglover wrote: post #199

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…

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…

And you've also proved why any dev can't make any money off of open source unless they have speaking engagements lined up.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#346

Post by mindcrime »

technoslut wrote: post #345
mindcrime wrote: post #249

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…

And you've also proved why any dev can't make any money off of open source unless they have speaking engagements lined up.

Tell that to Red Hat, Alfresco, OpenNMS, etc.

That said, yes, I agree that some projects would be difficult (maybe even impossible) to monetize as F/OSS. We know the enterprise stuff works, consumer apps may or may not be a different story. I think that book still remains to be written.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#348

Post by look_lookatme »

johns wrote: post #111
ceejayoz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timing a sale right before an announcement you're well aware will drop sales numbers off a steep cliff looks pretty deceptive to me.

Deals fall apart at the last minute all. the. time. You can't just stop doing business.

So buyers are just a hedge?

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#349

Post by epo »

mindcrime wrote: post #249
rglover wrote: post #199

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…

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…

Yet more wild-eyed, open source zealotry. No GUI-based F/OSS product has ever achieved the level of polish and usability of things like Sparrow because the people working on open source projects only want to do coding, they don't care about design, bug detection, documentation or, God forbid, user interfaces. If the developers of Sparrow had not been paid for their work, which they ensured by keeping it under their control, it would likely not have happened at all.

Re: Sparrow acquired by Google

#350

Post by stephenr »

crag wrote: post #244
backspace wrote: post #226

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.

The initial release was February 2011.

How is that "a few years"?

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