TDS4 release date?

Re: TDS-4 - buy again

So when is this mysterious app (TDS4) going to see the light of day? It's been bandied out for quite some time and seems to me that posting an ETA isn't going to affect your competitive position in the market and might actually get you a few more sales.

I read the TDS4 Read here thread... which is over 2 months old. Probably time for a dev update.

 

Couldn't have said it any better myself, Paul.

Tazdevl we'd love to release the first TDS4 program (there's more than one) today if we could, but this is no small project, and obviously we can only release it when it's at a certain point in development. Posts repeatedly asking when it will be ready do absolutely nothing to speed up the release of the program, and in fact they have just the opposite effect.

Please be patient - if you're a licensed TDS3 user then you'll be able to upgrade to at least one of the TDS4 programs for free (please don't ask anything about that for now).

Anyway,
Back to work.

 

I know i can wait , TDS-3 still works good .

 

I've been doing Product Management/Development and Marketing profesionally (software/internet) for a goodly number of years so I can empathize with your position quite well. However, I don't know how reliable Diamond is on it's release dates. While stating "when it's done" is a nice homage to Carmack and Broussard, in the business world it doesn't hold much value.

You have to ask yourself... How successful do we want TDS4 to be? There's a business and software side to the equation. How many users out there will not buy TDS3 because they are waiting for TDS4? What's the opportunity cost? How well are the alternatives on the market doing? Is their featureset and value proposition compelling? How many security products are they willing to buy in a 12 month period?

TDS4 might not see the light of day for 6 months. Maybe consumers don't like TDS3 and are interested in TDS4. Why would they buy TDS3? Perhaps the free upgrade isn't compelling?

Obviously you can only code and test so quickly. I'm not saying "work faster".

My point more than anything was that hasn't been any comments since the end of March, so maybe a monthly dev update might be a good way to keep people interested.

I'm sure it will be a great product. However, I've seen more than 1 great product not do well in the market or do OK based on pre-launch/release activities and missing the window of opportunity.

 

If the TDS developers are waiting to perfect the product, I fear we may never see it. That's because a product is never perfect. I'm sure there will be a TDS-5 and a TDS-6. I don't understand what's wrong with a TDS-4.1, TDS-4.2, etc. I'm used to that approach from a number of other vendors, and seems to work fine. Not to say it should be released with known bugs, but let's not go down the road that Microsoft did with Windows. When was Longhorn supposed to be released?

 

Like I said, I'm not saying code faster, but there's a communcation aspect that might be worth putting a bit of effort into and most certainly will not detract from your development efforts.

 

That's true as well. Maybe even something on the TDS web site!

 

If possible we would have got kind of plugin product, new threaths added per plugin, if only the heart can handle that (radius 3 4 5 6 whatever version)
... if it was that easy be sure it was done that way of course.

 

Tazdevl,

On the contrary, getting people all excited about unreleased software does nothing but invite questions which slow down development, as is the case now where I'm replying to this message (again ... ) instead of programming. We can sit here and talk about our upcoming software until the cows come home, but really, other than quench your curiousity what good does that _really_ do anybody? I use software too, but personally I don't expect those companies to tell me anything about their upcoming software (just as I don't expect book authors to tell me about their next novel) - if they choose to do so then that's great as I'll be less curious, but if they choose to refrain from discussing unreleased projects then that's fine also, it's their right, and who am I to complain about when somebody provides me with something, when if it wasn't for them I wouldn't ever be provided with it in the first place? Patience is a virtue.

As to release dates, nobody has ever written a program like TDS4 before, and even being the authors of TDS3 we can't give you an ETA for TDS4. You could just as well ask me "How long does it take to research and develop code for an undocumented kernel function?" - the answer is: "Who knows?". Regardless of whether we do or don't want to release an ETA for TDS4, it's just not possible.

As Paul said, it will be ready when it's ready - not before, not after, and there's nothing we can do to change that unless you want us to release a half-finished half-working program that only has half the features you want, and due to missing features would cause various problems, resulting in a lot of support issues for both us as developers and the selfless forum users who go out of their way to help others. (I'm not saying TDS4 is only half-finished - it's a lot further up the road than that, but you know what I mean).

D&C,

There's no such thing as a perfect scanner so we're not trying to achieve any unrealistic goals here, but TDS4 is more advanced than any anti-trojan scanner that has ever been released before, and development hasn't been easy. A lot of time-consuming research has been undertaken as well as a lot of 'documenting the undocumented', and I know we've tackled issues that other anti-trojan developers have indicated they won't be able to address, which often has slowed us down but the end result will speak for itself.

Anyway I hope now that you both have a better understanding of why it's impossible to put release dates on programs as advanced as TDS4. In the meantime, enjoy the current most powerful anti-trojan system in the world - TDS-3, and enjoy the rest of the weekend (assuming you don't have to work like some of us ..... )

Regards,
Wayne

 

I want in give you my thoughts on the issue of communication, as I think this thread is based on the desire for the developers to communicate more effectively with the customers. To say that giving an estimated release date is impossible is wrong. I'm sure many anti-trojan software companies would say that what you are working to develop is next to impossible, due to the complexity. However, you don't let that stop you from developing the most sophisticated layer of defense against trojans do you? If you can tackle that task of developing software like TDS4 than I'm very confident in your ability to give a semi-accurate estimation on a projected completion date. So what if you have to modify the date down the road. What this issue is really about it the level of importance that you place on effectively communicating with the people that give you the ability to engage in this development, your customers.

If any of you are familiar with Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and their forums, you may have seen that they recenly offered an estimated release date to Ad-Aware SE (the new name for the new version). I was active in persuading them to change their stance on customer communication. It took almost 8 months to get them to change their policy. Prior to the recent change they maintained a similar attitude, "it will be finished when it's finished."

The most convincing complaint came from another forum participant. He was an IT guy and he had convinced his manager to purchase hundreds of licenses at a cost of thousands of dollars. He raised the point that it was unacceptable for him to go to his manager and tell him that some of the issues that they were having with the software not doing what it should would be fixed in the coming version that would be released at an unspecified date. I'm not in this kind of situtation with TDS because I purchased it for protecting my home PC. The cases are very similar. Lavasoft got the point that businesses that don't effectively communicate with their existing and potential customers suffer from the decision. I think that software developers often forget that communication is vital.

 

Thankyou everyone for your feedback and taking the time to express your thoughts and opinions. Everyone has now had the opportunity to share their feelings so the thread will now be closed.

TDS4 is an unreleased program and until it's released we unfortunately don't have time like this to spend discussing it, as this time simply detracts from development time and I think most of our customers, like ourselves, would prefer that TDS4 is released sooner rather than later. When TDS4 is released feel free to fire as many questions about it as you like at us (just as you can now with TDS3).

Thankyou all for your understanding and support.