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Novamind 5

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highplace:
Its also the end of Sept 2009 so I wondered how things are going on Novamind 5 as it looks like a very exciting update. Can you give us a release date? Are things on schedule or are you running into a few issues?

It would be great to hear some more news

Thanks

Gideon:
Hi are you on the Mind Map Connection newsletter? If so, you should have received the full information that we are able to provide at this stage about the release schedule...but I'll paste it in here as well just in case some other people didn't get the newsletter - I'll include some other relevant bits too:

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US$1,000 for recommending staff

As I mentioned a couple of months ago in a previous newsletter, we are looking to add a couple more Cocoa/Obj-C programmers (i.e. Mac OS X programmers) to the team immediately. Since then, we have advertised worldwide for staff, but not found anyone who was both good enough and would fit well with our team. Also many people with the required technical skills seem to be involved in iPhone development, so there appear to be relatively few people available on the market. If you recommend someone for this role, as a member of our programming team, and we take them on and they stay with us for 6 months, then we will pay you a US$1,000 finder's fee. They must either live in Australia or New Zealand, or if from elsewhere, be able to come and live and work in Australia. This offer is currently only applicable for the Cocoa/Objective-C (Mac) programming role.

NovaMind 5 progress update

OK, I guess you're dying to know how the development work is going...

Windows Progress

We have encountered a number of unexpected issues in the development on Windows, mainly to do with the new technologies that we are using and the incredible complexity of things that need to happen behind the scenes to make a seemless user experience for you. However, our developers have been working hard and have got through the issues as they have arisen. There is still much to be done though. As you can see from the video, the core functionality of the application is working fine - in the video, I was running NovaMind for Windows on a Mac under Parallels desktop, with 37 other applications running at the time, and it was still performing just fine.

Windows Progressive Rollout

We had intended to release NovaMind Express around mid October, and then Pro a week or two after that, and Platinum a couple of weeks after that, but with all the issues we have had to work through, we are going to have to slide those dates a little. We now fully expect to have a public beta of NovaMind Express for Windows out before the end of October, and then, depending on the feedback, it would probably be released a couple of weeks after that. I would then expect NovaMind Pro to be ready for initial release 2-3 weeks after that, and then Platinum a few weeks after that.

Mac Progress

The Mac progress has been held up by a few technical issues, and the fact that we had to take a complete extra week out of NovaMind 5 development in order to fix issues with NovaMind 4 on Snow Leopard, and also by the shortage of developers on the Mac development team. Even if we got new staff on the Mac development team tomorrow, it would not speed up the development of NovaMind 5, as it would take some time for them to get up to speed with the development etc, but they would be able to speed up updates later. I hope we can get more people soon!

We still have one major risk area of the development to get through before we can give an accurate estimate of the release date of the Mac version of NovaMind Express. However, we have already implemented some of the Pro and Platinum features, so we are hoping to be able to catch up on the Windows team as we go. I'm sorry I can't be more definite than this at this time, but some significant issues have arisen in this project, and it's taken a lot of time to work through them.

I'll keep you updated as it becomes clearer exactly when we will be able to release the different editions.

-----------------------------------

So, since then, our offer of US$1,000 finders fee has drawn exactly Zero :( applicants for the open positions, so we are still running 2 people short on the development team. Well actually, it's more than that because those 2 people were supposed to be be the first stage of the expansion of the team...

The risk factor in the development which I referred to has turned out worse than expected and has added another couple of weeks to the developmene schedule. We've just about got past that now, but I'm afraid I still can't be exact on when the first release for Mac will be available. Believe me, I wish this was not the case, and we are doing everything we can to catch up. So right now, with our limited staff numbers working on this, I can't give an accurate release date for NovaMind Express, let alone Platinum. I could say what I "hope" to be the case, but then, things  could change, and at this stage, I don't want to raise any undue expectations. We're on the job from very early in the morning until very late at night, and will bring you a new wonderful product as soon as we possibly can.

Things are going a lot better on the Windows front, and we are still on track for a public beta at the end of October with the core functionality of NovaMind 5 Express, although there are a couple of bits we'll add during the beta testing phase to round out the features for the initial release. Of course, since our license keys are cross platform compatible, you will be able to run the Windows version under Parallels/Fusion until the Mac one is ready if you like, but be aware that NovaMind 5 files are not compatible with NovaMind 4, so you would not be able to open them on NovaMind 4.

I hope this fully clarifies the situation, and if you have any further questions, just ask.

FJP:
Any update on the expected release date of NM5?

highplace:
Would love to get a Mac update, please

Keep up the good work

Gideon:
Now that the tech preview is out for Windows, we will be using the feedback from that to refine the Mac version too, as we continue to develop it. We haven't been able to resolve our development staffing issue on Mac yet, so progress is still going to be slow.

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