Retrospect continues ...

[Dave Pooser]

Larry, thanks for your post. I'd like to see several points clarified:

> Pulled out of that much larger team is a core group that has recently
> been assembled to focus exclusively on Retrospect. In that team are some
> of the very best people we had at Dantz

How many people are in that core group?

How does that number compare to those who were working on Retrospect in the
year before the EMC acquisition?

Are there separate groups working on updates to the current version vs.
working on the next major release, or is a single group responsible for both
roles? 

If the latter, is work on the next version currently taking place
concurrently with updates to the current version or are they concentrating
on delivering Tiger/Intel/Vista compatibility for the current feature sets
first?

> I'm not Steve, for better or worse, but I still believe like him in not
> talking about future releases, but I will say that new versions are
> coming.

In my archives for this list I saw a message from you on 2/1/05:

> I'm excited about what we're doing, and how quickly it
> is now moving, but it isn't coming quite as soon as either of us would
> like.

Just shy of two years later, I think "new versions are coming" flat isn't
enough information. In my opinion, it's past time for a reasonably detailed
roadmap. Sure, Steve likes to keep people guessing, but the core product
line is refreshed regularly and the WWDC announcements give developers and
IT professionals a leg up. The Retrospect team has a ways to go before it
becomes as communicative as Apple in the SMB arena-- and communication is a
major Apple weakness.

I really want to see the next version of Retrospect come out as a great
product that raises the bar for backup software. But years of anticipation
later, it's difficult to sustain any optimism without some solid information
from EMC.
-- 
Dave Pooser, ACSA
Manager of Information Services
Alford Media  http://www.alfordmedia.com