Richard Huggins wrote:
Excellent idea. An update with NO "new features" would demonstrate MM';s commitment to maintain leadership status and its responsiveness to its user base. Part of me wonders if the programmers wouldn't cheer an announcement in staff meeting to the effect, "Folks, we're goin' bug squashing!"
I definitely think there would be a thunderous cheer should such a thing be announced.
But marketing has to get their little say (actually it has become the tail that wags the dog) so perhaps some little new, easy to program feature or appearance issue (remember textured paper?) so that they have some new features to brag about, but the majority of the upgrade being committed to squashing long-standing bugs and putting more meat into features which have been there for a long time.
Heck, even being able to announce Linked Score/Parts v2.0, where the developers have been allowed finally to do what should have been done for version 1, would be a great thing.
And the ability to re-squash bugs which had been long dormant but somehow got resurrected for Fin2007 would be very welcome by the developers. They don't want to issue buggy software, not by a long-shot, but when the marketing department has more clout as to what gets included (remember MicNotator?) and the developers simply have to say "yes, sir," there's nothing they can do about it.
I would prefer Sibelius' every-two-years-approximately upgrades with major fixes and improvements where the development team has been allowed to do its job properly and not be rushed, with the higher price ($169), rather than Finale's once-a-year, get-it-out-the-door-no-matter-what schedule at $90.
And the $30 that Sibelius charges for it's printed version of the on-line-documentation gets you a real book, not just an inhouse printing of a 2-up copy.
At first I was hesitant about Sibelius' future when it was bought out by the same company which owns M-Audio, but it seems as if that company has a better handle on how to let software companies operate than MakeMusic has.
Oh well, time will tell. Once the Sib5 program is actually in people's hands and we have a chance to see if it lives up to its promise (the Kontakt2 player that will ship with it allows 16 channels per instance rather than the 8 channels per instance that Finale has) or if it falls short.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
