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

[Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>]

Fascinating.  Thank you for sharing that.  Learn something new every day.

Alex M


On 6/4/12, Mike Gorse <mgorse alum wpi edu> wrote:
> 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-