Part 1: Update: Desktop Users
I’ve had a few ‘robust’ conversation about shifting gears and moving Reloading Studio to a subscription model. Let me say that this decision wasn’t made lightly, especially considering the gargantuan amount effort, time and commitment involved in building something like this from scratch – again.
I understand that this is not what some of you may wanted to hear, but the current model was dying a slow and painful death. I made this (very hard) decision after careful consideration and for a few reasons.
One of the main reasons is time spent on support. With desktop-based application the maintenance has become unmanageable. Instead of working on new features, I am pinned down by time – testing the application across multiple operating systems (Windows and Mac); and within different versions of each. This time could be better spend innovating and delivering value!
The other reason is support. Every desktop system a user has is just a little different and a little unique. Operating system updates, app conflicts with other applications, bespoke user IT issues and assistance with data recovery after disk failures… this is what I have been doing for individual users with bespoke system configurations. It takes a lot of time and left me with precisely zero opportunities for developing new features.
To overcome these challenges, I’ve decided to decouple the application from individual workstations, this is where I’ve spent most of my time – assisting users with bespoke issues. this has an impact, however, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, not even in the same universe.
This shift in delivering the application allows me to focus primarily on features. It enables faster feature development by requiring less development effort, less testing and less troubleshooting. This has always been my goal and top priority. I no longer have to spend days testing a feature that took hours to build, only to discover that someone somewhere has a conflicting configuration.
This is bittersweet, but itโs the only way I see Reloading Studio growing and evolving into even better and richer reloading ecosystem.
Looking forward to the milestone!
cheers
/RS