Hearing this a lot … again

And its disappointing. The worst part is I dont know if any of the people I’ve talked to that have said this have even bothered saying so to Xojo Inc.

Maybe they have just given up ?

While 2020r1 finally shipped, after what I believe is a record delay between major point 0 releases, reports I’ve had are that even though desktop didn’t change that much its not usable when moving a sizeable project from older 2019 releases. I havent tried moving any of my client projects yet. I’ve opened them and run to see they run but didnt do any work to “update” them as I keep seeing API 2 issues being reported.

And so I’ve heard “I think this might be the death of Xojo in our company.” at least 4 times from long time developers in the past 2 weeks – during the betas as they saw what was coming and now after the release finally came out. At least 4 products and their development teams (no idea in total how many developers that might be) are moving away.

That cant be good for Xojo as these sort of users typically have an investment that, once moved to something else, means they are never coming back.

And thats the kind of conversation I’ve had with these users. That they are moving their entire product away from Xojo for a variety of reasons – usually it amounts to “unsafe for my business to be based on this unreliable product” or some variation of that.

Thats disappointing to hear. A lot.

EDIT : Before this post even published I got word of 2 more that have decided to move to “something else”.

EDIT 2 : Another has mentioned their discussion isn’t “Should we move” but “What should we move to ?”. The decision to leave has been made and they are evaluating what to move to.

11 Replies to “Hearing this a lot … again”

  1. Sadly, for cross-platform desktop solutions, Xojo is great and I don’t know of a better solution for the kinds of things I do. If my solutions were single platform, esp. Mac, I would certainly move on. Right now it seems I’m stuck with 2019r1.1 for the indefinite future. Which means I get to keep the $700/year licence payments to Xojo, which is good for me, I guess.

    1. It definitely is which is why it is disheartening to hear that people have decided to move away from it for their businesses.
      Reasons have varied but all seem to say they dont feel Xojo is stable or trustworthy like it used to be.

      If you’re only using 20019r1.1 you dont need to keep paying $700 per year.
      Its not a tax you HAVE to keep paying “just because”.
      Pay it once when they have a version you’re happy with moving up to.

      1. My licence expired with 2019r2. API 2.0 is a disaster (IMHO). Even if there’s a “stable” desktop version in the future, I might just decide to retire and write Mac/iOS apps using Swift and SwiftUI. A lot cheaper, and the tools/frameworks are world class.

        I might have been paying for a Pro licence, but it sure didn’t make me feel like a pro.

  2. If Xojo had made their first priority making Platform desktop as good as it could (should) be, they might have made enough money that they could have invested enough to do the other platforms as least as well as the competition is doing them…

    They have not kept up on desktop. they have not worked as hard at abstracting platform differences there as they` could have, nor keeping the UI modern fro Platform desktop, but instead put the vast majority of their resources into the other platforms, where there is more competition…

    One should never take ones strengths for granted, because when one does, they tend to dissipate.

    -Karen

  3. The grass ain’t greener people.
    Desktop is dead. Mobile is no money,
    iPad apps might possibly feed you family
    Androids apps will just mean you deal with people who are scum and won’t pay

    In terms of other toolssets:
    Angular 1.6. What a clusterfuck up. PHP 6. Equally aweful. Pick anytool. Get burnt. How’s it programming in TCL lately, fun? or bash or vim or cake you myopic programmer layabouts. Howabout, any Adobe Phonegap programmers here.? Hahaha. Suckers!. How’s that Cordova code base feeling. Also What’s that stupid reporting tool for Java. Jasper. Life support crap. Or let’s not forget VB: what a terrible yet un-focussed tool. If you enjoy xojo you are ahead of the bunch.

    I’d like xojo to continue, thank you. You ungrateful swill. Buy a fricking $100 licence and join in.

    Dr Gerard

  4. By ‘you’ I didn’t mean Norm. I meant the rest of you reading this blog. Clearly you care .
    Love to you all Dr Gerard Hammond

    1. I dont ban people 🙂

      While there is a certain amount of looking for greener grass it also seems folks are looking for tools that are “better managed” as far as their development goes.
      The posts on INN arent “gawd I hate Xojo (the tool)”.
      Very few are that way.
      There are many about how they dislike the rapid release model and how that has led to a perpetual beta. Or how even verifiable reproducible bugs languish for a long time.

      From what I read its the management of the evolution of the tool thats got people frustrated and upset to the point they are abandoning it for something else that seems better managed.

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