Aware IM - to small?

Rem

Hello all!

I have tried Aware IM now for a week and I am very pleased. I think it´s a perfect tool for application development!

BUT (and I feel this can be a big one..)

Since the product is so small (read: not known to a lot of people) there should be a lot of help in developing applications so you don´t get stuck before your even started. However there isn´t. And the usersguide don´t even cover all of the system.

If a system/company like this (which has a perfect product) should grow, it depends on new users coming over from other competitive products.

If you make a Google-search on one of the functions in the rulelanguage you end up with one hit, ONE! And this is from the usersmanual. How on earth should I be able to get help then, when I´m stuck? Ofcourse I can let Aware IM consult me individualy, but it would be very hard to grow as a company if you should manually consult all you clients! And with the knowledge that every time I´m stuck I have to wait until consultations is available it doesn´t seem as likely to choose Aware IM as my choise!

So my suggestion; to whom it may concern, is:

Add tons of materials to you website with examples and best practises so there is reference material to search in.

Add a support function which can support users online with programming questions and make the answers available to others.

Encourage users to share and take part in forums (right now this seems a bit dead).

Add the posibility for IT-consultants to be resellers of your system.

A yearly subscription fee (10-20%) would perhaps be a good idea as long as the users would like technical support and updates. (Dont know if you have this today, but I havn´t seen anything about it anyhow).

I hope you feel that this is positive feed back (otherwise I wouldn´t have bothered writing) and will take my thoughts into consideration. If not, Im sorry.

All the best!
/Rem

aware_support

Hi Rem,

Thank you for your suggestions. As Aware IM grows we will be taking steps to make it better known in wider community.

Some of the issues you mention have already been addressed. Particularly, in addition to the User Guide, which is pretty comprehensive in itself, there are other useful documents located in the DOCS folder of your Aware IM installation. They include Getting Started, How To and Library Case Study to help you learn Aware IM.

There are also sample applications that many people use to learn by example or re-use in their own design. This forum has wealth of information on development topics and plenty of answers to common questions. The number of useful design patterns in Aware IM is actually quite small, it is just a matter of searching the forum to find the right one for your task.

People who purchased an Aware IM license have been very pleased with the professional standards and the response time of our support team. You can see some of their feedback at http://www.awareim.com/testimonials.html

Even though Aware IM may not be well know at this stage, people choose it because it can do things other tools cannot. If you need development assistance at some stage, please free to email to support@awareim.com for a referral to an Aware IM consultant who are known to be both responsive and efficient.

Rem

Well, that answer, kinda states my point, eh ... 😉

/Rem

tford

Rem,

The sample apps that Support mentioned are VERY good sources of info. The questions on this forum seem to come in bunches. I know that as I was getting up and running with AwareIM, I posted a bunch of questions & the type of communication you were looking for DOES happen on this forum. You just have to ask questions & both AwareIM support + other users WILL respond.

There might not be a zillion sample apps, but the ones that are provided do a very good job of demonstrating the concepts needed to develop quality applications very quickly with AwareIM.

Lastly, I found that one way I also learned was to get active in attempting to answer questions. As others would ask questions, I would create a mini application to test potential answers. Ultimately I learned even more by helping others.

Hope that helps.
Tom

Rem

Yes, I agree and don´t get me wrong I don´t complain about whats on the website. I think everything is very good. But the problem I ran into was that the app is was bulding was using rules that where not in any example. So I ended up with a workaround that took a day! And I couldn´t find it anywhere else on the Internet either. So, I thought about what could be better..

Say for example I mail the support, which I have done several times. I probably will end up with an answer that solves my problem. If just I have this answer it wont help you another day. But if it is made public it can help everyone. The documentation that is on the website today is god but not enogh (atleast not for me).

So if Aware IM started forums for Querys, rules, design etc. They could esily post and edit real questions there and the forum would be more alive as well.

I like the program but I´m still running on a demo and have not decided to buy or not. There are alot of programs out there but I want to go with Aware IM, cause it feels as the right level for me, but please more examples.

Also if you could download complete business spaces it would be very helpful in learning! And users could upload as well ..

/Rem

tford

Rem,

While there may not be multiple forum categories like some other sites, you can feel free to post all questions about queries, rules, design, etc to this forum & folks WILL respond.

Your thoughts on sharing knowledge are key to continuing to build up a body of knowledge about AwareIM's capabilities & methods. As people continue to share openly about their questions & learnings on these forums, the body of knowledge continues to grow. For example, if I have asked a question on the forum & find an answer, I make a real effort to post my learning back to the forum.

Good luck with your evaluation!

Tom

jclark58

Rem,

I tend to agree with your comments. I have used AwareIM for just over a year on and off and have developed one commercial application with it.

However, overall my experience has been positive regarding the quality of the application and the support - albeit manual.

There are lost of areas where the manual is a bit thin and needs some filling out.

More examples are needed I have wasted quite a bit of time banging my head and needed to resort to bugging the AwareIM guys yet again but I am sensitive that thay are busy doing new work as well.

AwareIM support is very prompt and responsive and stands head and shoulders above other similar products I have used. These guys must work almost 24/7 (or at least 18/7). There have been several features that I have asked for that have been included in downstream releases.

I agree that a more active user support base will help as a consequence I tend to post more questions to the forum now than I did. Turnarounds usually occur in 24hrs but some do go unanswwered especially if it is an added comment to a questions that has already been answered.

Be Aware: Ongoing updates do cost 50% of the licence fee per year (as I found out) and you will be asked to pay for a support ticket if your query requires AwareIM staff to look at or consider your particular configuration. Turnaround here is usually same day and of course paid support tickets do get priority.

I agree with your 10-20% maintenance fee - 50% each year is a bit steep to get continuing updates and should include a couple of support tickets.

A way of tagging Pearls in the forum might be good to facilitate reuse.

A user supported / driven site might also allow sharing of configurations and tips more explicitly.

Reading between the lines I dont think AwareIM is the biggest software company in the world and it would seem they are managing a fairly fine balancing act to keep all their bottles in a row as well as they do.

Dont get me wrong, AwareIMm is a great potentially world beating product and I plan to continue using it. The software is reliable and I have found it to be very responsive in us especially given my initial concerns about it being Java based.

The few deficiencies I consider are worth working through while we help these guys get to critical mass.

Rem

Thanks Jclark for your comments!

I would be of great interest to here from someone(in charge) at Aware IM about our thoughts!

A userdriven forum would be great as well (But are there enough users?).

Since I´ve been in the business since 1990 I have had some practise in choosing vendors. A good rule usually is to choose a not to large one, but not to small either. If you choose a too large one you will end up with no attention, but if you choose a to small one they will eventually cease to exist or they wont have the power to develop their product. So you have to hit the sweetspot, so to say.

I definately think that Aware IM would be better of with updatesubcriptions than this system where you have to buy the software all over again. The risk is obvious that the customers don´t buy new updates and thus fade away.

My main concern now is that Aware IM grows and continue to develop their product to the best for all of us!

By the way how is marketing handeled? You don´t really se Aware IM in any tests or so.

/Rem

weblike

Hi all,
It's passed almost 7 years since this post was written.
First of all don't get me wrong, I love this product and I'll continue to work with it every day.
What concerns me and makes me a little sad is that after 7 years the above posts are still true. It's true also that the product grown and camed with a lot of great features, but what concerns me is the small community. Since 17th of June nobody subscribed to this forum. The other devnet sites are with very small activity. This software has big potential, but the world doesn't know....
Support what are the future plans for this product?
Thank you.

kklosson

I stumbled onto AwareIM in 2009/10 while searching for a tool to build an application which I envisioned. I am not much of a developer/programmer. I have always used tools that do as much work as possible and shield me from the tedium. AwareIM is that tool and was a perfect fit for my project. I built it rapidly, got it into the market, and it is now profitable with high potential.

To me, it's all about the project. Find a tool that enables you to develop it rapidly and sustain it over time. If you want to make sure that your tool remains viable in the market, then you have but a few choices. From a cost perspective, I am positive I have spent less than I would have using any other major tool suite such as Visual Studio, Cold Fusion, etc. Plus, this is a business. Price your products accordingly.

There are several things I would like to see improved in AwareIM. Some are easy to say and impossible to do. Over the short time I've used the product, I've seen continuous product improvement, typically more robust than other major products.

With a bigger market comes more sensitivity to the user community and slower progression in product improvement. That's just how it is. So for me AwareIM is in the sweet spot and if they just keep doing what they are doing, it's fine with me.

customaware

I'll second all of that Kklosson.

I had used my "other" development environment unwaveringly since 1987 (yes..it is still going strong) and for a non web C/S application it is still the best tool I have ever come across. But for developing web apps, it was agonising.

I discovered Aware in late 2012 and was totally blown aware. As you say, it hit the sweet spot and I have build a number of apps now - one large one in particular, that I would never have been able to build in my previous environment in any reasonable timeframe.

Also, when I see all the different (mainstream) technologies that are wrapped up in Aware I am mindful of a couple of interesting points.

I just do not have the time to every learn them all yet Aware allows me to tap into them with the product but protects me from all the hassles of learning them. I could never build an app using java, ajax, sencha, etxjs or any of these technologies...yet with Aware, my app encapsulates all of these technologies.

Aware support is the best I have experienced. Given they are a small company it is extraordinary.

The forum could be improved.

One big improvement is for all the users to be a little more outgoing and use this network as a tool to help yourself as well as others.

The user group for my previous environment is unbelievable. Been going for nearly 20 years. Many know each other personally. Have a worldwide user conference each year and race each other to answer peoples questions and posts.

We could help ourselves a lot here simply but putting a bit more info in your profile. People are always interested to know, who else near me is using this tool. What type of apps are they building. What options have i got to network with others.

I would love to host the Inaugural International AwareIM Developer Group Conference but it is almost impossible to know where the most developers are located as it would make sense to hold it nearer there.

Anyway, for me, best bang for buck tool I have ever encountered for robust, user acceptable and easily maintainable web apps.

Keep up the good work AwareIM Team.

tford

So for me AwareIM is in the sweet spot and if they just keep doing what they are doing, it's fine with me.

Agree 100%!

hpl123

Good discussion, here are my thoughts. First of all, I too absolutely love AwareIM and can´t even think about going another way for my development projects and the product (Aware IM) is a innovative, intelligently designed masterpiece.

Regarding the discussion about Aware IM community and future. I disagree to some of things said in this post. First of all community (and this connected to future), the Aware IM "community" is unfortunately not very good and there is this forum with not very much activity and openness and then there are several other attempts to do something else (like DevNet, Rennurs efforts etc.) but it seems like the existing "group" is "stuck" in the current existence and not willing to change and do something new (and most likely beneficial to Aware IM, developers etc.) and that is IMO a shame.

When looking at the benefits of a "real", larger/better community. I think the benefits for developers is obvious but besides that I FIRMLY believe that if the community grows (community systems, community features, community users etc.), the product grows. If more people use Aware IM, Awaresoft gets more resources (ripple effect among other things) and can if they want to expand hire staff to work on all parts of the Awaresoft vision (product, marketing, community, support, bugs etc. etc.) and Aware IM as a product is so good, I think Awaresoft can grow it to become REAL big BUT that would require a dedicated vision/strategy and I don´t know and can´t speculate about Awaresoft´s current vision.

Sweet spot? Not so much. I too like the current development of features etc. but thinking 2 steps ahead and thinking about what would be most beneficial for me as a Aware IM developer (short and long term), I think the development of features would improve (more product improvement, not less) and we all would get more features, better features (higher quality) if Awaresoft and the community would work more on/towards really expanding Aware IM (community system/efforts again can be a central piece in actually doing this) but again I can´t speculate about Awaresoft´s vision for Aware IM.

aware_support

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and kind words. Aware IM community continues to grow (maybe not as fast as we would have liked, but still). Forum activity has been a little quieter than usual lately - but probably because of the holiday time in the US and Europe.

We are constantly improving the product - currently we are actively working on porting Aware IM to Sencha 5.0 and incorporating its latest features, such as uniform tablet support, RTL, breadcrumbs toolbar and many others. It's a big project.

We firmly believe that we have the best product in the world in our market and we will continue to make it even better. So spread the word around and the community will keep growing!

RLJB

Our perspective:

We used the "community" a lot when we started using Aware, to ask things and to learn. We use it less now for two reasons: a) we know what we are doing, and b) we're too busy doing product work using Aware to be as active on the forum.

I personally love the size of Aware company/product, it's development speed is great and Aware's responsiveness to it's customers is second to none. The benefits of it being smaller are great.

lineamovil

I like AwareIM a lot. It is my only project, working with AwareIm.

I come from MsAccess & SQL Server, and one thing that I miss a lot, is that you could find tools for almost everything. 95% were free, and the rest was paid for. Code was easy to find. VBA. Everyone shared their files and samples. Here is a bit harder just to see how people desing or show their work.

I have tryed a few times to share my stuff and encorage people to do the same. Some have done that, but I know it can improve.

I want AwareIm to grow, because if this software grows, I grow too.

Soon I will be posting my latest app. Lets see what happens.

Share the knowledge!

kklosson

As I see it, the only, or best way to share is to provide a BSV with the given functionality. And better yet to provide the BSV as a live demo. This is essentially what AwareSoft does with its demo apps. I think that any expansion of that concept would be beneficial. For example, perhaps AwareSoft would publish a BSV submitted by a user that demonstrates some unique capability. I think the demo apps are a great resource for developers. However, it does take some effort to construct a BSV for this purpose.

ACDC

RLJB wrote
Our perspective:

I personally love the size of Aware company/product, it's development speed is great and Aware's responsiveness to it's customers is second to none. The benefits of it being smaller are great.

I totally agree, please stay just the way you are

tford

I have a powerful demo that I will be posting soon that demonstrates the ability to tag records (with either users tagging records OR automatic tag being applied in certain cases.

Users can then search based on any combination of the tags. Once the records are found, it's easy to then to any number of things with the found instances:

email (not in the demo)
Word merge (not in the demo)
Apply another tag to all selected records
Save the search criteria for future use.

I built this BSV as a proof of concept before integrating the tagging / searching concept into a much larger BSV. I wanted to make 100% sure that the logic was rock solid before integrating.

Will be posting to Tips and Tricks in the next week or two at the latest.

kklosson

...and that's what I'm talking about.