I have changed my job 6 months ago to adapt to changes in my private life. I am still big fan of previous employer. Recently I started to use their product/service that was in early stage when I was leaving. Well, I used their other product while being there, so being their customer should not be new for me, but that one was stable and I've been in while this one is still in beta and I see from outside. I did not participate in development of either of them.

As can be expected this new product has issues. Bugs, usability problems, unfinished features. I expected that and it is not the part of problem why I decided to write about that. I always send my bug reports and suggestions. They are usually answered soon. Problem is when the answer contains "I asked and it should work". So it was not tried after my report, it was just believed it (still) works - maybe because it takes less time to assume than check and they have a lot of other things to do. But how long does it take to check that RSS feed does not contain any content? 20 seconds or less I guess.

My point is that experience have brought me completely new perspective. Till now I was always at provider's side and now I got to other side. Seeing different steps taken than I hoped for as a customer/user opened my eyes. Issues are not bad, only that having no clue when and if they will be resolved feels annoying. The service is free, so I do not feel ripped off and I understand their priorities have to be on paid tasks, but still it feels annoying. My current employer has better approach to handle these situations: acknowledge and thank for bringing to attention, assess, apologize and say when it is is expected to be fixed (followed by fixing it, of course). Taking this path is not only helping to keep good relationships between vendor and customers, but in fact can be felt as rewarding to customers, because they can be proud they helped with product/service.

For me, it means that I am now aware of these problems and I hope I will remember them next time I'll be assigned a bug.

I am big fan of two programs. Big means that I bought also upgrade. It also means I used to advocate both of them. This is not the case with one anymore. These products and their companies have many common things and many differences. Let's look at them both.

Similarities:

• Both products are excelent in what they offer, they have many unique features
• Both are commercial products surrounded by commercial and free competitors
• Both companies need to release new version every year to keep income
• Both companies need about half a year for finalizing public version to finished state (see later!)
• Both companies have a lot of bugs reported by customers which is normal (see later!)
• Both companies need to balance enhancing existing features vs. adding new
• I resist upgrading to new version of both products until some killer feature is added I must have
• Both products satisfy my needs in their respective area
• I have bought at least one upgrade of both of them in past
• Both companies distribute their products mainly through web (see later)
• Both companies have associated discussion forum for their products (see later)
• Features of both products are copied by competitors
• Both products need a lot of computing resources and are a bit slow (that means if they were twice as fast, I would be glad)

Before I get to their differences I am going to disclose them. I am comparing JetBrains with their IntelliJ Idea and DXO with their DXO Optics Pro. One is for SW development, other for processing photos from DSLRs (how surprising from me :-) ).

Differences:

• JetBrains starts with Early Access Program that can be used by owners of previous version for free, getting valuable feedback about problems and features driving final great product. DXO releases final (paid) version that is completely useless till version x.2
• JetBrains' developers are active in discussion forums trying to help, DXO ignores bug reports and tries to blame customers (indirectly for buying their terrible product!)
• When JetBrains releases new version it contains change list (detailed for EAP, somehow more generalized for update). DXO is able to release several updates without saying what was changed.
• If you buy new computer, update version of Java or switch to another language/library, there is fair chance you still can use your version of Idea. If you buy new camera you will probably need to buy new version of Optics Pro. Or if your new camera is supported by existing version of Optics Pro it is possible your existing lenses are not. And upgrading might not help you.
• I have seen JetBrains' server down, but DXO is master in this area. Many people are not able to download product/update, downloaded file is corrupted or even users are not able to activate their license after they paid for it. It can take days to be running again.
• Some people (former users of Optics Pro) are coming to forum for fun - to see how other more tolerant people struggle to use Optics Pro and are abused by DXO
• JetBrains care about their customers, DXO does not
• JetBrains care about their image, DXO does not (I am sure their management is not stupid, thus this conclusion is only one that I could make)

Am I going to buy upgrade of these products when they are finished?

• JetBrains: I am already using their 8.0 Milestone 1, hence the answer is probably yes.
• DXO: I am afraid to install their latest update 5.2.1 because nobody knows what was changed and there are long discussions about broken reading on RAW files. Nobody knows what will be offered by 6.0 and I hope I will not buy a new camera supported only by 6.0 if I still want to use my version of Optics Pro.

Why I preffer attitude of JetBrains?

• By releasing EAP soon and often people can try it to see if it works for them. As software developers they are usually striving for new features and they get them. Basically they get addicted to new version long before it is done!
• Released EAP has usually lot of bugs, but people do not feel robbed compared to what happens after paying for Optics Pro that is full of bugs (and refuses to start). Nobody will bash JetBrains, because the newest build (Release Candidate or even less) has 1234 bugs, but there are not many phlegmatics that would be satisfied with wonderful marketing materials promising something it cannot deliver 10 months after paying for product, because it is unstable and full of bugs. (To be fair, I waited patiently 8 months since 5.0 was shipped and bought 5.1 and I have never experienced the worst things described in forums. I consider myself lucky).

Why I wrote this

Now I am getting to reason why I am writing this. My intention is not to mock or ruin business for DXO. They are self sufficient it this area. Contrary, I try to help them in only way I can. Please, DXO, start to behave as a comercial company that plans to stay in business and start to do what your customers deserve from you. I have given you one example worth of following.

Oh, there is one positive twist about all this - I am really happy I did not encourage anybody to buy Optics Pro 5.x. I would not be able to apologise enough for that!

Recently I have logged into internet banking application of my bank in Slovakia. I found an ad offering me a loan. That is fine, I like to be informed about potentially useful things. This time, however, I was not interested. But I could continue only with two paths "Contact me, I am interested" and "Show me this offer later". This looked like unintentional omission of third possibility "Thank you, do not show me this again". So I contacted the bank and told them about this.

I've got reply next day (yes, they have good customer service). From the answer I have learned that that option was there before, but sometimes people clicked "I do not care" and then, some time later they wanted to apply. So the bank decided to solve this glitch. And they did. Problem is, that solution seems worse than original problem. People not interested in that offer in current version of internet banking are supposed to click "Contact me, I am interested", that will present them a form they need to fill out. The critical part is to leave the form empty. That handles missing state "Thank you, do not show me this again" with possibility of changing your mind later, because empty form will be available in "empty forms" folder.

Huh? How was I supposed to figure that out? And what about people that do not keep in their mind that you need to click Start if you want to shutdown Windows? I do not know what designers/programmers in my bank were thinking about, but I expect I am not the only person who would not click "Contact me" option if I do not want to be contacted. It seems to me that someone suggested the cheapest technical solution how to add new this new functionality - just remove existing feature and existing code will handle rest of it. I am sure they did not think about people using their product.

I hope it is only workaround until they implement, test and deploy working solution.