Why?

I took the time to write the following and did so without violating any of the forum rules. Why did you close the thread?

 

I would have liked the thread to stay open if only for the opportunity to disagree with dallen.

Nick

 

And I thank you for taking the time to write that, but the thread was not closed because of your post, and you didn't violate any rules so don't worry about that. It was closed simply because everybody has now had their say, and the thread wasn't achieving anything other than wasting more of our time by having to respond to more and more questions about a program we haven't even released yet. I'll add a post after yours to explain that. When TDS4 is released please feel free to fire as many questions as you like at us (just as you can ask anything you like now about TDS3), but until TDS4 is released we simply don't have this time to waste talking about it. It's a public holiday here in Western Australia today but I'm here working so I assure you we're doing everything we can to get it out as soon as we can - why wouldn't we want to get it out as soon as possible? I can assure you that we want to release it even more than you want it released , but staying here talking about it is doing absolutely nothing to help with getting it out.

Thanks for your understanding.

Anyway, back to work.

 

Thank you nick. I would love to hear you voice your thoughts.

 

I was trying to offer a bit of advice to the gang @ Diamond in that post. They chose not to take it. That's fine. I don't know what their resource situation looks like, but I don't think that a occasional dev update is a bad thing. Given the fact that I've managed the development and marketing of some fairly successful products that have generated a lot of revenue for my previous employers and clients since I've been a consultant, my comments weren't necessarily coming from a tech-anticipation perspective.

Reason why the post was closed was due to a couple people from Diamond saying they had no interest in providing even a monthly dev update to interested potential customers. No reason for it to go on so it was closed.

Edit LOL NM you got an answer.

 

tazdevl,
As a current student at a top business school, it sounds like you know your stuff.

I don't know what this means, but I hope it's not something added by a moderator of the forum.

Wayne - DiamondCS,
I respect your time, and I hope others here do as well. I can only imagine the effort that goes into developing this kind of software. One point I'd like to make. There are benefits that come from giving estimated project completion dates. Many of the questions would be answered before they're even asked once the communication channel is opened up. Just a thought to consider.

 

LowWaterMark,

Thanks for the information. I guess I should have looked, but I'm glad that was the case. Thanks again.

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=26249
See Wayne's sticky thread about the subject.

I'm no developer but it's not like building a house where you deal with logistics and concrete plans and materials.
Maybe in fact it is as structured, with the difference lot finds different solutions in the building. Here all is newly developed and invented, there is not any concrete stone to be used, and a fast changing environment, in the meantime several products using some of the new technologies are released and we see in the forums how users deal with them on their systems etc etc
we are just repeating what has been said countless times.........
So it is said all time: you are using part of the new TDS-4 technology, only with another name on it and not a suite comparable with the current TDS-3.

 

Nope dallen. I edited my comment after I hit submit, saw there was a response from Diamond.

I also went to a top biz skewl ( ) several years ago after being in the real world for a few years following undergrad. Let's just say I have a knack for product management and marketing.

 

Let me add my perspective. I'm on the development end of things in the chemical industry. I can see Diamond CS's point on all this.

Let's say we have a new product that has shown promise in lab-scale manufacturing - now the really hard part kicks in - can we scale-up the lab process? What adjustments do we have to make to carry the synthesis out on a plant scale? How do we do purification? What are the economics of the process? If we feed this product into an existing plant site and use existing reactors - how do we transition into and out of this new product? As all these decisions are made, the target product may change a bit. If we can't change the target, we may have to invent some new ways of executing the manufacturing process along the way, even though the product itself exists bascially unchanged. Until we can manufacturer the product at plant scale reproducibily - we really don't want to disclose what's coming down the pipe and when it will appear. At pilot scale, we will often sample key lead customers - this is our alpha level test. Once we have confidence that we can make it at full plant scale, other customers will be sampled, but they'll be sampled with material that will actually reflect standard production.

We keep a lot of the information internal as long as possible since there may be some attributes in the lab scale product that we simply cannot pull off either at all or economically on a full plant scale. We also don't want to telegraph too much information to our competition since they can do a lot of things (squeeze the economics of their manufacturing, cut their margins, etc.) that would impact the launch of our new offering. Nor do we want to build unrealistic expectations in our customers.

I'm sure there are a number of new things that TDS-4 will implement. A lot of it may involve undocumented or sparsely documented Windows features. Once they "figure things out in the lab" and implement these features in a production program, they really have to see how that whole thing interacts with other software out there. Does it coexist with other applications? Are there any unforeseen interactions? If there are unforeseen events, it's back to the lab to retool or one makes a decision to hold off on that feature (which usually happens after a retool effort fails)

The intrinsic need to have a firm ETA for TDS-4 really comes back to competitive drivers in this area and there are a lot. There is the obvious competition out there from other trojan scanning options. But AV suppliers are also now getting into the mix - TDS-4 will have to coexist with the major AV apps as they (the AV suppliers that is) start going down that road of increased malware coverage.

From a user's perspective, I'd love to have a copy of TDS-4 on all my machines. Failing that, I'd love to know when it will hit the street. However, until I see their competition releasing a superior alternative to the current product - it's a more or less academic question since I won't switch until I see something better.

To take Jooske's analogy and twist it a bit more - it IS like building a house, but your inventing what "house" means along the way, and that can alter the project timeline a lot as you discover what a house really is and what it takes to make one. It's a lot different than a situation that reflects pragmatic implementation of completely known technology in a somewhat new or altered context (an example here would be a new PC at a much lower pricepoint)

Anyway - just a couple of random early morning thoughts.

Blue

 

Think they wished it was as relative easy as planning to build a house as in the menatime of inventing complete new things and dealing with undocumented materials, there's also that outside world not sitting still waiting till you invented something they can kick but they invent new threats as well so you have to keep on track and several pases ahead of those new developments in the trojan world as well during the new building process, which can even mean start from scratch in the middle of the work to do it better and find better solutions, etc.
Yes, it's absolutely more complicated then other materials or color for the tiles in the bathroom in the new house; it is looking at all moments if you're going to plan a bathroom inthere at all in the first place!

I notice new code added to the current database, in my last full system scan alarming on a thing which was there almost a year and never any of the known spyware scanners alarmed on it, didn't even know it was there nor where it came from so now asking DCS advice what to do with it.
So ahead of the adware/spyware scanners too, at the moment.

 

Jooske,
Thanks for adding your thoughts.

BlueZannetti,
Your comments are very insightful. It's apparant that you have extensive knowledge about the topic. One slight gap in your logic that I want to see if you can fill. Based on the "building a house" analogy, I would argue that for the person that has paid for the home and waiting for the contractors to finish the project, you can bet that there are well known completion deadlines (one step further than an estimation). Stiff penelties can be assessed for not meeting those deadlines.
Your chemical manufacturing experience is very relevant in replicating the level of complexity that the developers here are dealing with; however, it still falls short when I put forth the argument that I was sold the TDS suite under the agreement that I was also purchasing TDS-4 upon its release. A lot of time has passed since then and one could argue that customers like myself are owed at least an approximate time frame in which we can expect the delivery of our purchase.
This is the only logic gap that I could find in your analogy; however, I feel that it's a pretty significant gap.

 

LIFE= I want it..I got it..I'm happy..hmmm..I want it..I got it..I'm happy..hmmm..I want it..I got it..I'm happy..hmmm..I want it..I'm dead

 

OK, I think I see where you are coming from here.

Here are the two scenarios both involve the purchase product X with the expectation you will receive a free upgrade to Product X+1 (TDS-3 -> TDS-4).

1. If you based the purchase of product(X) on the promised characteristics of product(X+1), and there are commercial offerings that currently provide many of the new feature set enhancements of product(X+1), details of the release date and target feature set for product(X+1) are critical and simply have to be communicated.

2. If you based the purchase of product(X) on the basis of product(X) functionality alone, and have been promised that in doing that, you will receive a free upgrade to some/all components of the next generation offering, details of the release date and target feature set really aren’t an issue – in a commercial sense – until the competition starts rolling out offerings that exceed the functionality of product(X). Naturally, in any customer’s eyes, functionality is tied to the components of the complete feature set that matter to them – and that can be very customer specific. If the time lag is long enough, sure I’ll wonder if I’ll ever see product(X+1), but pragmatically that is not an issue until I have other commercial options available to me.

For me, scenario (2) is what applies.

Are there viable commercial options? Sure, although each has there limitations such that none – in my opinion – exceed the functionality of the current TDS-3 product for my purposes. In the current product landscape, I feel that TDS-3 remains the category leader. If I didn’t feel that way I would be very aggressive in asking when TDS-4 is slated for release, what the projected feature set looked like, and how the module positioning was targeted to us. To me, TDS-4 will be similar to ProcessGuard in that, in many ways, it will redefine the product category. PG basically established a new category – again in my opinion.

So where does that leave us? Well, my purchase was based on TDS-3 and TDS-3 alone. TDS-3 is the house in the analogy used, and we have been living in it, so it’s not as though we’ve contracted for a house which remains unbuild. The free upgrade to TDS-4 (and in keeping with the analogy - that is a new living domicile - maybe it's a house, maybe not - that you can trade your current house in for) only influenced me with respect to the timing of my purchase – it didn’t make sense to hold off since there was no obvious benefit in doing so, assuming I stayed within the DCS fold. But, at the end of the day, my purchase is of the feature set provided by TDS-3, which I have used as delivered. Since DCS has been very circumspect in discussing product details regarding TDS-4, I don’t believe anyone can say that they have purchased TDS-3 based on specific features to be incorporated into TDS-4. If a competitor releases a product tomorrow that exceeds the performance of TDS-3, well then the landscape will have changed. Based on what I see, and what products such as ProcessGuard suggest, this is a very unlikely scenario. Impossible? No. Extremely unlikely? Yes. Am I comfortable with my decisions? Yes.

Not sure if I’ve completely answered your question. I hope so.

Best regards,

Blue

 

Rainwalker,
That's deep. I'm not sure that my simple mind can comprehend such complex philosophical rhetoric. However, I hope that you get what you want and that you have many years ahead of you.

BlueZannetti,
I think that you've pointed out that our differences trace back to our expectations when we made our respective purchases. Based on your expectations, I would have a similar attitude and similar conclusions. I hope that you are able to see things from my perspective and why my attitude is the way it is based upon my expectations.
What is your educational background if you don't mind my asking?

 

Hi dallen...this could be fun but Paul would soon be all over it..

 

As far as business/management theory and practice are concerned, I've found that a greater amount of knowledge and insight comes about from signing the front of paychecks than the back.
______________
PhD, School of Hard Knocks
Entrepreneur
President/CEO

 

But if the product wouldn't be all what we wanted (together we must have filed a kilometres long wishlist, and Wayne and cie promised to try to make us all happy where possible) so if we hadn't asked so much maybe ... and if the trojan world hadn't demanded so much more per day maybe...
we know from a few products (talking about other companies here, not about DiamondCS) at each release people get into serious trouble because of ?? whatever, serious bug and vulnerabilities demanding for urgent repairs and new updates and fixes, in a very serious case even DiamondCS created a fix for all to use for free, etc.
With the DiamondCS products we have not see that kind of trouble, only replacements for more features or other solutions if even only one person got into problems for some reason, not even always caused by the product, but just to enable also that one user or small group of users to use the software happily too (and the rest of their system too, of course).
So i'm rather waiting and no people screaming for refund and more nasty things so when they sign their checks and creditcards they do so in full confidence like we all have been able to with each release of DiamondCS.
They have a name to keep. Perth Quality.

 

Exactly! You got the code.

btw, I've been a happy camper with TDS for years... consider it probably the best value of any software purchased... imho

 

And a very valuable combination with ProcessGuard, Port Explorer, wormGuard, CryptoSuite, and a whole page of free tools of which many released in the meantime during building on the TDS-4 family, to show us some of the new techs developed, giving us even more tools in hands to secure our systems and to start practising for the coming TDS-4 joys!

 

I second that. Very little of what I learned in graduate school (MBA with honors) prepared me for the subsequent 12 years of signing the front of paychecks.

Nick

 

I for one am not interested in any products that are not ready.....it seems i have spent most of my life waiting for something.............i'm use to it and it's been helpful

 

No, not at all. I'm just a simple chemist - started university life as a maths major, but I liked to cook, converted to chemistry, ended up with a PhD. Followed that with ~ 20 years of experience ranging from University teaching (with some chem industry consulting and advising to start-ups) and working at a mid-sized firm (in chemistry, that means a few billion $ in annual sales). Been learning new things all along the way and am still a techie at heart.

Blue