Re: [orca-list] Some bugs with perhaps possible fixing in master branch

[Mike Gorse <mgorse alum wpi edu>]

On Mon, 4 Jun 2012, Alex Midence wrote:

> Valid point.  My thinking is that a commercial software vendor with
> all its processes and such would also include a nice thorough market
> research component prior to introduction of any feature since it
> stands to reason that they would want to focus their efforts on
> producing something that their buyers want and on something that their
> competitors either don't have or improving upon what they do have.

Not necessarily. Having worked for a company in the industry in the past 
(though not a screen reader company or a company as large as FS), I can 
tell you that we certainly weren't doing any kind of formal market 
research, conducting focus groups, etc. It might have been a good idea in 
theory, but we were a small company and didn't have a large budget despite 
charging a substantial amount for the software, since our sales were 
counted in the thousands (not in the millions, as you'd have with a 
company like Microsoft). Often we would add features based on requests 
from major users or from dealers who sold and supported our software. If 
enough people asked for a feature through technical support and/or at 
trade shows where we had a booth, then it might get brought up and added 
in. So I think that there was informal "market research" going on but 
nothing like what I'd presume a large company might do.

-Mike G-