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RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

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RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

James Trott — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:01:21 GMT

[quote][b]cfh (7/28/2007)[/b][hr]What, if your still there, did you decide? I just bought the product, there is no support, and looks like bugs still exist from 2006. It's july 2007 now.

Either InstantASP folks don't monitor this, or they don't have an answer. If anyone has another product they've' tested, please let me know. I can't spend too much more time on a bugged up program. Irony is it's a KB program and they don't even use it!![/quote]

Hi CFH,
I'm confused as to what you're asking if we've decided about, the final release of KB 2.0 as previewed already, gets closer every day, and we're doing everything we can to release it very soon. We're trying to keep everyone as up to date as possible, incidentally we do use the KB extensively, if you have as specific bug you'd like addressed please feel free to open a support ticket or email support@instantasp.co.uk and we'd be glad to help you resolve them.

We really do look forward to releasing KB 2.0 and hope it's worth the extended wait the userbase has so patiently sat through, we do appreciate it, and hope you'll be enjoying it in the very near future!

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

cfh — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 20:19:49 GMT

What, if your still there, did you decide? I just bought the product, there is no support, and looks like bugs still exist from 2006. It's july 2007 now.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

James Trott — Mon, 14 May 2007 09:28:22 GMT

Hi Tom,
Currently our focus is 110% on the KB hence theres no real sign of a blog at the moment, when I say we're "looking into it" I mean its been discussed briefly and is to be implemented after the release of KB 2.0, in order to better keep the community up to date so that all updates are in one easily accessible place, not scattered across the forums. Until the KB2.0 is out of the way there will be no movement on this as we're pretty much flatout. Both myself and Ryan are mindfull that we want to improve communications with the community, and intend to make improvements in this area in the near future, but time is limited, as when we're not developing we're responding to customers.

For all those still awaiting the KB Preview, I would expect it imminently, keep your eyes peeled for the post from Ryan, apologies for the further delays, but hopefully you'll find the preview worth while.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Toad — Tue, 01 May 2007 08:21:41 GMT

[quote][b]James Trott (4/25/2007)[/b][hr]Last I checked Glebne, I was comprised entirely of Solid matter and definately not Vapor. Ryan is working tirelessly on the KB 2.0, and the issues that have come up in the project are quite legitimate. Deadlines slip, but with a small tight team, keeping the community up to date is not always the easiest task, especially as pressure to deliver increases, which im working to alleviate here in the forums, just by being available and answering/responding wherever I can.

We're looking into and discussing ways to improve customer relations and support, but as with anything it takes time, and KB 2.0 really remains the primary focus, once thats out of the way, alot of headway can be made in other avenues. One of the major things we're looking into is a developer blog, which will allow us to keep clients up to date more frequently and let them get closer to the development process so they can understand a bit better whats happening on a near daily basis.[/quote]

Sorry, but this seems a bit hypocritical... You say you're looking into a developer blog, but surely if you've time for that, then you have time to keep us, the paying customer, updated on this forum and, I think more importantly, answer our questions.

I want to see answers and time spent in here, not on some irrelavant (to me) blog...

I hope that my cynicism will be proved wrong, and that InstantKB will be resuscitated in the near future...

Tom

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

bosko19 — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:49:35 GMT

Should we expect to see the information that was to be released on 4/24 "by the end of the day" soon? We are eagerly awaiting at least a description of the new product and some screenshots.

A public beta (or alpha as the case may be) would also be a good idea so you can have the entire InstantKB community assist with the testing and prepare their current versions for the upgrade.

At this point we are in the dark as far as the new design and feaures are concerned. It would sure be nice to plan ahead for the redesign and implementation time all of the InstantKB customers will have to put in to integrate the product to their current environment.

Thank you,
Bosko

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Geert Veenstra — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 02:07:13 GMT

[quote][b]James Trott (4/24/2007)[/b][hr]Hi jbiskner,
The afformentioned preview is nearly complete, that should provide more details, I spoke to Ryan this morning, and there should be a post with more information from him regarding the KB before the end of the day today.[/quote]

Another missed deadline ?

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

James Trott — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:13:28 GMT

Last I checked Glebne, I was comprised entirely of Solid matter and definately not Vapor. Ryan is working tirelessly on the KB 2.0, and the issues that have come up in the project are quite legitimate. Deadlines slip, but with a small tight team, keeping the community up to date is not always the easiest task, especially as pressure to deliver increases, which im working to alleviate here in the forums, just by being available and answering/responding wherever I can.

We're looking into and discussing ways to improve customer relations and support, but as with anything it takes time, and KB 2.0 really remains the primary focus, once thats out of the way, alot of headway can be made in other avenues. One of the major things we're looking into is a developer blog, which will allow us to keep clients up to date more frequently and let them get closer to the development process so they can understand a bit better whats happening on a near daily basis.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

glebne — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:36:32 GMT

James,

You're the first positive sign I've seen on these forums for 2 years. I've long since stopped believing promises from Ryan--his Christmas posting promising something by the end of the year was a nice touch--but adding a new developer is a concrete move forward assuming of course your not vapor-developer ;). As other's have posted and as I'm sure you know if you've spent some time in these archives, teasers and vague promises regarding v2.0 are not going to be taken too well.

Unfortunately, my organization is probably too far along regarding plans to migrate to another product to make v2.0 useful for us unless it comes out soon and is nicely integrated into active directory. Nonetheless, I check this forum every couple of months to see if anything is happening.

I've been in IT for many years and InstantASP is a complete enigma to me. I've rarely seen such good products combined with such bad customer relations.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

James Trott — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 03:11:55 GMT

Hi jbiskner,
The afformentioned preview is nearly complete, that should provide more details, I spoke to Ryan this morning, and there should be a post with more information from him regarding the KB before the end of the day today.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

jbiskner — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:32:36 GMT

Hi James and Ryan,

Thank you for the 4/13/07 posting by James. Still, the user community and a set of potential buyers are waiting for a delivery. To know that the product is not officially dead is only a step... can we please receive an update with timelines that we can be assured of? (and also, how can we take confidence in those timelines?)

We enjoy InstantForums and are hoping to make use of the KB. As I understand it, we are not proceeding until v2.0 release.

We look forward to your response.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

James Trott — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 07:56:56 GMT

Hi Guys,
Just a quick note to say that InstantKB.NET is not as noted 'Dead' and version 2.0 is now nearing completion. We're sorry for the extended delays, but think that the wait will prove more than worth it, alot of work has gone into InstantKB 2.0, it's looking really great. Ryan is aware of the feedback from the forums, and he will be putting a post together with some new screengrabs illustrating the kind of functionality you can expect in 2.0, for the meantime rest assured that every effort is going into developing 2.0

We understand the frustrations with updates and feedback or the sometimes lack thereof, to address this Ill be spending alot more time on the forums, and hopefully ill be able to respond to threads to help alleviate this.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

barrycaruth — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:55:25 GMT

We've given up - it's a dead product and v2 is vapourware.

We've migrated all our content into a Confluence wiki which is the bee's knees. Bye all.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Timbo — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:08:40 GMT

Now it is 12 months :angry:

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

lrlok — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:46:38 GMT

There was an update less than a month ago, lots of lines :)

http://support.instantasp.com/Topic11848-9-1.aspx

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Terry_B — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:45:44 GMT

The sad thing is all we want (the current userbase) is a post every now and then. How long does it take to craft a six line post every six months or so.

This lack of information to current users is positively amazing - whatever happened to common sense...

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

barrycaruth — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 13:33:42 GMT

That message from Ryan is almost a verbatim cut-and-paste of his post from March 2006 to the customer only froum for the KB product. So the message hasn't really changed in the last 6 months.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

glebne — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:27:25 GMT

A colleague (Joe) that I had shown InstantKB earlier in the summer really liked it and planned to purchase. He talked to me and I told him that I was reluctantly thinking about another solution due more to the lack of communication than anything else--I can tolerate delays as long as I'm kept informed. I told Joe I thought he should spend some time in these forums to get a feeling for my frustrations.

Anyhow, as a result of browsing this forum Joe sent an email addressing his concerns. Surprisingly, he got a detailed response from Ryan which he forwarded to me. Ryan's response is both encouraging and a slap in the face at the same time. If prospective customers merit the 15 minutes it took him to write the response, why can't he post a weekly or even monthly short HONEST update about the status of InstantKB 2.0? Again, I like InstantKB 1.3 and could live with it for a while longer if I had confidence in InstantASP. Their customer relations are baffling, truly baffling :crazy:

Below is the response which Ryan sent to Joe. In it he seems to think that a 2.0 which "blows everyone away" will solve all. He just doesn't get it. It is not the delays that are the main issue, rather it is the lack of honest communication that is so frustrating. He obviously made a mistake in his April 2005 post announcing InstantKB 2.0 with a wildly optimistic timetable. We all make mistakes. I'm in IT, I know what it's like to work 80 hours in a week and still leave 40 hours of important work undone! I myself tend to be too optimistic and constantly have to check my tendency to promise more than I can deliver. Ryan made a mistake, so what! It would be a non-issue if a year ago Ryan leveled with us, admitted that his timetable was wildly optimistic, and gave us an honest assessment of the state of InstantKB 2.0. Instead, he's compounded his initial mistake over and over by either ignoring us or giving vague meaningless assurances.

OK, I'll stop. I'm ranting because I really like InstantKB and don't want to switch and thus am incredibly frustrated by InstantASP's handling of this.

Ryan's email did not ask to keep anything in the email confidential so I don't think it is wrong to post here. I've also attached the screen shot he sent of InstantKB 2.0.

From Ryan to Joe:

Hi Joe,

Many thanks for your email. I can certainly appreicate your apprehension.

Unfortunately we've experienced several delays with InstantKB.NET v2.0.These delays have really been due to feature creep and integration issuesbetween InstantKB.NET v2.0, InstantForum.NET. We are working towards ashared authentication model and integration between our software and as suchwe've had to develop both products at alongside each other which hascontributed to further delays.

I can tell you InstantKB.NET v2.0 is our highest priority and we are workingto make this available as soon as possible. We've learnt some hard lessonsfrom providing dates previously however we have now finalized the featureset and certain areas such as article work-flow, admin/staff permissions,tickets and shared authentication. As items are finalized we just need toimplement the code. I'm aiming for a public beta within the next 2-3 months.

I've attached a brief screen grab of InstantKB.NET v2.0 in it's currentstate. Please remember this is still in development and the interface willbe more complete upon release. This will hopefully assure you we are workingon this release and will certainly make it available once everything is inplace and tested.

We are sincerely sorry for the long delay with this release and we've learntsome hard lessons. We will ensure these type of delays don't happen again.We are very much looking forward to making InstantKB.NET v2.0 available ASAPhowever I just want to ensure it's right, fulfils all the requirements we'vegathered over the previous year and most of all blows everyone away :)

I hope this helps and provides a little assurance. Please don't hesitate tocontact me if you have any further questions.

Kindest Regards,

Ryan Healey
InstantASP Ltd - ASP.NET
Collaboration & Support Tools

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Robert E Spivack — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:19:05 GMT

Thanks for the moral support. As a former developer, I'm sensitive to the challenges of trying to bootstrap a small company and wanted to give InstantASP the benefit of the doubt. I don't know if it is a full-time company or part-time sideproject, but the lack of communciation is the deal-killer for me.

As you say, devoted customers can tolerate a lot, but being left in the dark isn't going to keep our loyalty.

I hadn't mentioned other products until now because I did want to see how InstantASP responds. Give the time elapsed since my first post, I too have decided to move on.

Xigla FAQ is my first choice right now. We started using Xigla ALS (Absolute Live Support) as our "online help / real-time chat system" and I have been very happy with them. We started with the ASP.NET 1.1 version and they already upgraded it a while ago to ASP.NET 2.0

Their UI is clean and the product is solid. We've never had a crash or any problem with it. Although Xigla FAQ integrates with ALS, that isn't a main requirement for us (the integration is just a button that operators can use to launch the FAQ easier.)

The price is right, $169. Probably like most folks, we can tolerate anything up to $500 without a huge decision process, it's the investment in time to convert to a new system and the reload data, etc. that is the real cost.

I am attracted to Xigla FAQ because the end-user interface is simpler - the screen is less busy and less intimidating. Our users are not computer experts find the InstantKB screen to be too 'busy' and they are confused and don't know where to click. Also, the support in creating articles with inline graphics, multimedia, and attachments seems to cover everything we need.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

glebne — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:49:55 GMT

I've been looking for about a month now but not devoting much time to it. Carlos's statement they don't have a release date but would like to have a beta by the end of the year (but can't promise anything of course) was the final straw that has convinced me I have no choice but to switch.

Currently I'm leaning toward Absolute FAQ Manager by Xigla (http://www.xigla.com/absolutefmnet/index.htm) but haven't had time to do more than look at some online demos. I also need to do some more research on Xigla as I don't want to be in the same boat a year from now.

Anybody else have any suggestions or products they plan to look at?

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

barrycaruth — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 03:33:53 GMT

I agree. I'm assuming it's dead. Time to abandon ship.

Shame we've got to convert all that content.

What products are you looking at to replace it?

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

glebne — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:09:25 GMT

"We need to make some important decisions about whether to stay/wait for the next version of InstantKB, or move on to something else as we can't wait for ever..."

Welcome to the club! I now see it was a big mistake to invest my staff's time in InstantKB. As much as I like many aspects of the product I am convinced it has no future. It really annoys me that when I was making a KB decision in Nov 2005 I received personal emails assuring me that InstantKB was being developed and was delayed due InstantForum development.

Following this saga for almost a year now it boggles my mind how InstantASP treats customers who WANT to stay with their product but just need some information to be able to plan. All we've been getting for well over a year is "we're working on it" along with a road map with no foundation in reality. Don't they see that we can make decisions in a vacuum and are therefore are forced to look elsewhere. My recommendation is to start looking. I've already made the decision to switch.

My last post on this topic (http://support.instantasp.com/FindPost11560.aspx) pleaded for transparency and promised to put my money where my mouth is but even this did not merit so much as a reply. Given the way InstantASP is handling questions about InstantKB's future I think the only rational conclusion is that the product is orphaned. I hate to say it, but I also have no choice but to conclude they don't want to officially announce this lest they lose sales and/or maintenance renewals.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Robert E Spivack — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:24:45 GMT

We need to make some important decisions about whether to stay/wait for the next version of InstantKB, or move on to something else as we can't wait for ever.

How firm is the commitment to release a beta in the next few months? Since we haven't seen anything in over two years and most dates here in the past have been woefully lax in being met, do you see this being realistic or is Spring 2007 more likely?

In terms of features and enhancements, I realize nothing is firm until the code is almost released, but do you have a roadmap of intended features/enhancements or even just features under consideration that you can share?

We need some visibility. The only thing worse than waiting for Godot is not knowing what we are waiting for....

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Carlos Muniz — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:54:36 GMT

[quote][b]Robert E Spivack (9/10/2006)[/b][hr]I see some old posts about releasing a "new" version by September 2005. Now we are almost midway through September 2006 and still nothing.

The lack of ASP.NET 2.0 support is not grave (although it is annoying); more importantly, there are lots of small pent-up bugs and wish-list items and also general desire to have more features and see this product move forward.

Question: Is there a future for this product? How about a realistic answer? If we have to migrate to a different vendor/different product, I need to start planning for that and I certainly would prefer not to abandon InstantKB, but OTOH can't wait forever and there's been no guidance here at all to help shape our decision.[/quote]

Hi Robert,

I'm sorry about the delay. We're working on InstantKB2.0. We don't have any release date yet, though we will probably release a beta version towrads the end of this year.

RE: Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Robert E Spivack — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:08:24 GMT

The lack of any reply (several days since the initial post) is disappointing. I guess it "speaks for itself" as an answer to the question posed in the subject line of this message?

Is InstantKB.NET Dead?

Robert E Spivack — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:36:14 GMT

I see some old posts about releasing a "new" version by September 2005. Now we are almost midway through September 2006 and still nothing.