Part 1: Maintenance Development strategy

Hi Ron,

Thank you for your post. Your post really speaks in strategic terms of what
opportunities to pursue and where to expend resources. I was just exchanging
emails to this effect with our Marketing Manager [Andy Boyd]. Andy is a
power user of UltraEdit [like you] and his insights are applicable to the
root of any feature request: Andy's thoughts verbatim...

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"... Our customers are typically on the cutting-edge of computing
technology. Computing technology moves extremely fast, so it is vital for us
to know where to focus our efforts, ie: what "paths" to follow in terms of
feature/product development.

In a generic sense we are only limited by the time it takes us to develop
the product/features. There are obviously other constraints, but generally
in software development everything is possible.

Because the market moves so quickly, we must also move quickly to identify
trend versus fad, then we must quickly pursue the trends so our products
meet customer needs in a timely fashion. The implication of pursuing a fad
is that we can potentially spend a lot of time/energy developing "solutions"
for something that will soon pass and doesn't need solving anymore. Or, we
could spend time developing features that are too niche to propel success.

Fortunately, we do a good job of identifying customer needs for our
products. We keep our ears close to the ground by listening and acting on
customer feedback. Of course, we can't predict where the market will go in
the future, but by staying closely connected to our customers we can
identify current needs/trends and where needs/trends are going in the
short-term. Our organizational structure allows us to move and re-act
quickly to changing needs, and this is what allows us to identify and pursue
the "correct" development paths."

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I think what Andy stated is worth sharing in the context of our discussion
as it addresses some fundamental statutes of software development:

1.) Ongoing development demands constant attention. Fully understanding our
obligations to a broad user base in excess of 2 million users, one must
understand that any one particular feature or functionality is judged in a
particular context.

What some may feel are minor shortcomings others may feel are critical to
their daily work. What then drives the prioritization of bugs and feature
enhancements?

At IDM, we understand that our users have their own context from which they
look at our software and it's vital to realize what is important to the
unique user as well as the user community at large. Hence; another important
aspect of our user-driven development model.

Because we involve the user from the start, we have the insight of knowing
what the needs are of any given discipline using our solution.

2.) The nature of software development is not static. Technology is dynamic
and software must constantly adapt to the industry trends to provide users
the solutions they need.

3.) Development and Quality go hand in hand and every release is yet another
turn of the quality cycle.

Ron, the two features you mention are on the short list so I hope you stay
the course and have faith in us. XML is not a fad and parsing enhancements
are core to so many disciplines that depend on our solution. Enhancing XML
support will continue in the next two development cycles...(both maintenance
and new development) and I'll ensure our support staff reports to me
directly on what documented customer feedback we have specifically
requesting enhanced parsing functionality.

Thank you again for your post and your trust in IDM as your solution
provider. I really appreciate the time you took to speak to me.

Best wishes,

-Rich