Is it just me or is this probably the biggest joke in the wine software world at the moment? Yes, I jump at every opportunity I can “over there” to bash the crap out of the fact that they think they can reinvent the wheel and that by making it a cube instead of round it might somehow roll better.
/discuss
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You’re gonna git banned now!
It sure has been fun hammering them over “My Wines”
Yet, I don’t think anyone has been or will be banned for commenting.
The wine software world is rather niche…
I suspect they actually will ship something this year. And I suspect it will actually be quite credible.
The thing is, if someone tells you they are three months from shipping and they are still working on shipping it three years later, how much do you trust them to listen to feedback, fix bugs, and show responsiveness etc. Rapid iteration and transparency are not exactly the strong suits of the shop.
Mel, I’m joking, but not entirely. Mark has been known to ban people who he’s observed making statements (on other forums) to the effect that they are purposely stirring things up on the eBob forum.
Isn’t the problem that My Wines is being developed under antiquated assumptions - I mean, is there a point right now to release a product that doesn’t really improve on the small local databases that people already have 20 years ago? CT introduced a complete paradigm shift in the way we look, and will look, at cellar inventory software. Anything new and hyped has to do at least what CT does and more.
Another aspect is the integration of “professional tasting notes” in the app. As we all know, that’s tricky, because once something is out on the internet it’s difficult to control its distribution. But more to the point, how much leverage can you get on offering integrated TNs by a critic who is currently being pushed into irrelevance? The time to leverage on that was 10-15 years ago, not now.
I’m not sure if any of what you wrote is true. You might want it to be . . . but I’m not sure it is.
John, what is your argument against G’s statements? Do you disagree that CT is an excellent and innovative program? That it will be difficult for simpler and more captive software to compete? That it’s difficult to control the distribution of content once it’s released on the internet?
My impression is that My Wines is intended to have a lot of the features of CT. In fact, my speculation is that they know they will be competing with CT from Day One and don’t want to release something that is obviously inferior. Hence the 3 year delay, while they try to catch up. A very hard thing to do, esp. since Eric has a large active community giving him regular feedback.
CELLAR TRACKER, THAT IS ALL!
Carry on
Although they will not, the could release something identical to CT right now and in a couple of months when Eric releases the new stuff, they will already be out of touch. My personal opinion is that they are just too damn stubborn to integrate with CT the way that IWC did. I would never in a million years bought a Tanzer subscription but the fact that it is automatically integrated into CT made it as easy upsell.
Okay, first you only picked out the portion of the quote relating to CT . . .
Second, I don’t really have an argument against G. I simply said I’m not sure if any of what he said is true. Look at what he said.
Third, software, any kind, is only as good as its users.
Fourth, coke and 
play together. So do KFC and Popeye’s. Mac and PC. And countless other examples of like products. There is no reason to believe that any system can’t exist at the same time that CT does. Whether or not people want it is a different story of course. To suggest that one system, especially something that is software (or anything technology based for that matter), is the end all be all is short sighted. Others should try to create . . . even at the risk of failure and ridicule.
Fifth, G’s statement about Bob being pushed into irrelevance is probably wishful thinking.
Interesting view John. I’ve been in the software industry now for probably 13 years as a developer. Yes, there is a lot of competition but people rarely take on the giants in the biz and actually become successful at it and if they are remotely close, they get gobbled up. In such a small niche as this (wine, etc) I just do not see the point of them trying to compete when a synergistic relationship between the two would have made much more sense for everyone.
Two islands out in the ocean. One is pretty big and has lots of people on it and they are all having a great time. They have running water and power. The other is much smaller, has only a few of the local natives running around in loin cloths. You might think it would be cool to move over to the small island but you are gonna miss your toilet pretty quick.
Rob is absolutely correct in that the biggest issue for My Wines, or anyone else wanting to play in this space, is that you need numbers in order to make your product useful and successful. My Wines could be ten times better than CellarTracker, but if everyone is already on CellarTracker, then few are going to want to switch. Some may decide to do both, if they are eRP users to begin with, but I wouldn’t think many people would go to that much trouble.
The software industry tends to have higher switching costs than other products to begin with, and when you throw in the fact that this is a community dependent product, which may have some of the highest switching costs of any products, you have a potentially large problem. Not insurmountable, but large. There’s a great scene in the Pirates of Silicon Valley movie (about early Apple vs. Windows) where Steve Jobs, when he discovers that Bill Gates has “appropriated” his GUI mouse interface for the first version of Windows and beaten him to the market, and tries to say that it doesn’t matter, because they make better stuff. Gates immediately shoots him down and time has proven him correct: it didn’t (and doesn’t) matter. In the computing world, the ability of your product to interact with other products is far more important than how great your product is (imagine if Apple had made iTunes just for Macs, would everyone be using it? How could they?), and in the community world, size matters. CellarTracker already has these two areas covered and is a great product to begin with and is free in its basic and eminently usable form. Very tough hill to climb for anyone, but it seems like eRP has decided that they need to expand their core competitive area beyond the WA and into cyberspace instead of recognizing that they’d be better off just co-opting the best product in the market.
Ditto! Smartest thing Tanzer ever did.
In addition, I can assume My Wines is gonna cost people some dinero or pesos, right?
Is there anything on eBob besides the forums that doesn’t cost $$?
ugh - the more I think about it the more it makes no sense. They must have nobody over there with software management experience that can see the big picture. Even the guys who developed the Tesla car came to the realization that you have to learn how to sell cars instead of just making a cool one.
I believe Joe James runs the software management side!
http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=200356" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I tried to read that post but it seems like a bunch of fluff to me for some reason. Coincidence?