I'm blown away at the power of L4: a skeptic repents

KevinJones said:

Wow! I think an apology is in order on my behalf. I grumbled when I first tried L4, but after using it I now realize how much power has been packed into this program. 

Logos, I apologize for grumbling. Thanks for your efforts.

I would like to encourage other users who are struggling to press on in their efforts to learn the program. It really is an improvement.

I am especially excited about what improvements will be made in subsequent upgrades and releases. 

Praise the Lord for enriching us with such great tools!

KevinJones said:

Wow! I think an apology is in order on my behalf. I grumbled when I first tried L4, but after using it I now realize how much power has been packed into this program. 

Rosie Perera said:

I read the article that link pointed to and was about to give a cheeky reply to Bob: "That's fine for v1.0, but not for 4.0..." But then read the article that article pointed to about interating rapidly based on real world feedback.

Well, I didn't read the article but the thought that I've had in the past seems to be where this article might be heading. We could have it one of two ways. Logos could wait until add ducks are in a row and the product is finely tuned,  and we are left with whatever they give us for a long time. Or, they can release it early in the process, and give us a chance to help steer the ship so that in 6 months to a year we have a product refined significantly by real user feedback. I'll go for the later.

Personally, I like this development model as it fits with my Engineering background and leadership style.  I guess that is where the difficulty comes when some folks have a different personality, set of experiences and expectations.  Then again, as church leaders we are always working with people who have different learning styles so one would think there would be a more generous spirit toward accepting different approaches.

Rosie Perera said:

It gets overwhelming, the amount of change we have to deal with these days...in everything! I don't think it's good for our souls, as we can never rest.

as much as I love change and trying out new software I must confess I think there is a lot of truth in what you've said. Wise guy say "He who tries many ways to do things does nothing well one way."

Philip Spitzer said:

Or, they can release it early in the process, and give us a chance to help steer the ship so that in 6 months to a year we have a product refined significantly by real user feedback. I'll go for the later.

[Y] +1

Bill

Arthur Balis said:

I never really enjoyed being a guinea pig.  I like it a lot less when I unknowingly pay for the experience.

-my 2 cents.

I can certainly understand and sympathize with the other side of the coin.

I did some dragging just now and it didn't crash = )

Kevin A. Purcell said:

If in fact Logos is going to be in "constant beta" then I won't last long around here.

Arthur Balis said:

I laughed at the salesman who promised me the upgrade to Vista would come free in the mail.   

[:D]

Kevin A. Purcell said:

If in fact Logos is going to be in "constant beta" then I won't last long around here.

Kevin,

remember L3? It was a beta download for....hmmmm all it's life? Up to V4 I had the "Beta 3" installed [:D]

Kevin A. Purcell said:

If in fact Logos is going to be in "constant beta" then I won't last long around here.

Yeah, I was taken aback by this statement as well.  I am in agreement with you, Kevin, although it depends on what Bob meant by his statement. If he meant that L4, being a released product but in a constant beta stage, I will not be lasting long. If it is a model as always been (such as what was done in L3...and I suspect from his statement that this is not what he means), then that is a different story.

I might be focused wrong but my understanding of the complaining has less to do with the new look and style and more to do with the excitement of downloading L4 with no understanding that

1.  The download would be the biggest any program has ever asked to download...and without giving the unsuspecting downloader the information he/she needs to be prepared

2.  L4 was still in beta form (and still is today)

I would argue that if on day 1 (not day 21) this information was released, most people who have complained, would not have complained.  The first 21 days of L4, I was saving the data and reformating my machine on my spare time as a result of crashes due to installing L4.

When I finally got everything working again, and L4 installed, it ran just as I expected from the information I had...and I love L4 just as I knew I would, not having any problem with change in style or look. 

As I understand now, these two issues mentioned above have been addressed.  But they were real issues the first month of L4.

I love to test beta software. Right now I am enrolled in beta tests for about four different products and have other beta software installed that is so good I use it for most of the work I do in those programs.

What I want on a program that has to work for me because I have to get work done is that they might choose to rush out some new feature with this beta all the time mentality that will break it at just the wrong time. With the new update feature in L4 it just updates and being a guy who loves living on the edge, I always greet the little blue box in the tray with excitement

Sadly, now the excitement is "will it finally improve the speed of this program" instead of "wow what new feature is in here today."

Here are some other thoughts regarding L4 and its release and the effect of not having "parity" of features with L3

At present, though I have L3 and L4 on my computer, (and I do not have excessive slowness issues with L4), because my notes, verse lists, prayer lists, etc are only accessible in L3, and because copy/paste and print are more restricted on L4, and L4 notes do seem to have some bug issues, I cannot actually use L4 for my work. I can run it so as to update it and have a poke around, but it is not going to be my bible study software for some time... maybe 6, 8, 12 months?

The effect of this is that while L4 requires some new adaption and learning, I am not using it enough in work to find out how to use it or to see any great feature for which I think it might be worth holding out, instead when I am running it I am comparing it with how easily I use L3 and all the great features of L3 which L4 does not (yet) have.

So one effect of "public beta" may be to make the newer program look weaker.

There is another, longer term background concern. Logos have certainly made a new departure in L4. It may well be a good business move. But here we have to decide a longer term investment for ourselves. What if, as features from L3 get added back into L4 we find that they do not measure up to L3? What if notes never can replace L3 notes, L4 verse lists cannot do what L3 verse lists could do? They may well do, but we don't know, yet. So we wait. But at some point we will have to decide if L4 is really a departure to a different "audience" than our ministry. Despite the years of information we have added to our logos 3 versions, if we really think L4 will not do the work we need, we will have to look for an alternative as at some point a discontinued product will be less supported. That is the source of some of the consternation at the moment from our point of view.

This may sound (having re-read it) like a moan or something, but it is not. I really believe that properly understanding the causes of customers' responses is vital to resolving them, and its taken me time to work out some of the factors here myself. I hope L4 will improve to the point where I can be using it day to day, but right now, even with the interface and features, it is simply easier and in some specific places neccessary to use L3.

To all the Logos 4 users out there who are complaining about the new Logos 4 not having all the features of L3. I do appreciate the new features that Logos 4 has, I also realize that it is missing some of the features of L3.
I like the fact that L3 is separate from Logos 4 and can still be used for those features that we feel we can't be without.
Logos 4 has many of the features coming that will rival if not surpass those of L3.

To those who still seem to be sour on the new format, have you taken time to consider that the RESOURCES in the upgrades that are offered also work in L3? They are some terrific resources at some terriffic discounts. In your case, think of it this way, forget the fact that the new Logos 4 platform is included and price out the resources that you are interested in that are in the upgrades being offered. With the introductory specials in many cases, the upgrade price is less than one of the commentary sets that are included. Along with that comes the Logos 4 platform that will only get better with time.

At first I upgraded to Logos 4 Platinum from Scholars Gold. The commentaries that I did not have would cost me way more than my upgrade price. As a matter of fact, one of the commentary sets (that was on my wish list) was more than my upgrade price, not including all the others that were included. That alone cinched the upgrade deal. After printing out the comparison between Platinum and Portfolio and calculating what it contained that I would really be interested in that I did not have. I realized that the items on my wish list that were included in the upgrade would cost me $2,000 more than my Portfolio upgrade price! So one month after upgrading to Logos 4 Platinum I have upgraded to Logos 4 Portfolio. I couldn't let the great deal get away. Also what I found was that there were some awesome books included that I didn't know that I really wanted, until I got them.

Thank you Bob and the Logos Team for working diligently to give us great research products! And thank you too, for the great new upgrade offers.

Bob Pritchett said:

I'm not saying we made the right call, or picked the exact right moment for each action...just talking about what influenced us.

Bob,

thanks for chiming in...as always; it's a real eye opener when we get to hear the behind-the-scenes info.

Thanks for a great product....your efforts are appreciated, even by this V3/V4 user. [Y]

Keep doing what you're doing to keep Logos healthy!

Bob,

Thanks for your comments and for interacting with us.  I have been very critical but I see a positive upside to Logos 4. So thanks for trying to let us understand what has, is and will be going on.

Bob Pritchett said:

While we are improving and adding to Logos 4 constantly, I don't see this period as an extended beta, I see it as a finished v1.0 product with constant updates and improvements. I can see how, from the perspective of a Logos 3 user looking for feature parity, it's not fully baked. But someone with no Logos 3 experience would see it differently.

I would disagree with your belief that new customers would see things differently. There are a few things that new customers will miss greatly. Printing is a key one, with great limitations there. And the overall performance on many systems. I would bet there are more than a few new customers who were like me frustrated with the performance. It is better in the beta of 4.0a, but still not yet up to the speed of many other Bible software applications or v. 3.

Joel said:

I laugh at people who think Vista is terrible. I push Windows harder than most, and for me Vista has been a solid upgrade from XP. Win 7 is obviously better, but it's sad watching people jumping on the, "I haven't used Vista but hate it anyway." bandwagon. My entire family is perfectly happy with it, and it has caused us all about as many problems as XP has, which is very few.

Yes, I can remember all of the negative comments about Windows ME which came on my old computer though I didn't experience those problems.  The only problem I had with ME which finally drove me to install Xp was that it didn't display Syriac and Ethiopic properly.  I suppose there are those who will always complain.  I complain too.  I don't think L4 is nearly on a par with L3 for my use though it has some very nice features L3 didn't have.  I do, however, expect that this will be rectified and will therefore simply report the problems.

Jeremiah Daniel Morris said:

Bob Pritchett said:

Our conversations in the forum are largely with Logos 3 users who are moving to Logos 4. Your complaints and concerns are legitimate, and we are listening and answering them as fast as we can. And together you vastly outnumber the number of "first time users" who purchase Logos 4. 

However, in the practical world where we pay the bills, the revenue generated from existing Logos 3 users is pretty well balanced with what we generate from completely new users.

I hope you don't take offense -- I don't mean to diminish or devalue our existing users.

It would be hard for me to imagine New-Users are on par with Existing-Users in revenue terms for Logos.  Between L3ers moving to L4 and L3/L4 users purchasing add-ons and prepubs (I'd imagine new-users are not near as likely to do this) I'm surprised "we" are ONLY "pretty well balanced" in revenue generation.

-You'd have to also take into account the word-of-mouth advertising that L3 users moving to L4 will generate.  All those things added together ought to significantly outweigh ALL New-Users. IMO (always a chance I don't know what I'm talking about)

I've heard a few times now about how L4 is "focused" on New-Users, but then how us L3 "old timers" shouldn't fret about it, "we're still pretty important."