Discussion Forum: A Letter To Customers!

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Topic: A Letter To Customers!

Message posted by Joe Rao on July-19-2007 at 10:33am

China
February-06-2007
178 Posts

Dear Customers,

In response to all your responses to our previous thread, we think we should put something here.

We should apologize for the bugs that Tourweaver2.0 has brought to all of users, but Easypano has never denied this as some customers have put forward without having second thought.

After the release of Tourweaver2.0, people from Easypano have realized there were a lot of bugs with the software and programmers from Easypano have made their all out effort in fixing every bug submitted by our customers, though some of them are still unresolved due to the tech problem and one more reason is that people from Easypano are humaning being, not a almighty god and Tourweaver2.0 is only a software. I think no one will deny that all software has bug, but the main point is we have done out best. That is why there were a lot of updates afer its official release. In order to aknowledge your long term support and our apology for Tourweaver2.0, Easypano offered free upgrading for the users of Panoweaver4.0(before April 6th) to Panoweaver5.0.

People from Easypano are always open to our customers' suggestions and our policy is always customer oriented, not like some customers' abusing words.

Tourweaver3.0 is coming and we have uploaded a trial demo in order to tell our customers things are moving forward, but unfortunately, vituperation comes from our loyal customers. It is ok becuase we know you need best product and we want to be best, so we take your vituperation as encouragement and still keep moving forward and we have updated that trial demo, but we should admit that there are still bugs with that demo becuase it is published by a testing version of Tourweaver3.0, even not a beta. You are still welcome to point out the defects of that demo. Once again, people from Easypano are always with your side and will try their best to meet our customers' requirements, but one thing we shold also say is that we can't satisfy all due to the different tastes of different people. Hope you understand. Here is link to that demo: http://www.easypano.com/gallery/flash_vr/index.html

We have put great energy in developing flash version of Tourweaver3.0 because we want it to be the best. Here we thank you again for your long support of Easypano products and your criticism and suggestions on our products and customer service. If you have any question and doubt about our products or service, please take a second to help and submit a ticket here.

Best Regards,

Joe Rao.

-------------
Easypano Holdings Inc.

Message posted by BrahmaVision on July-19-2007 at 12:21pm

Slovakia
January-13-2007
21 Posts

It is not serious to ask your customers to buy upgrade for the sw which is buggy. After several month of hesitating (after reading many complaints) whether to upgrade or not I decided to upgrade. I must say that it has very nice new features, hovewer to make VT which really works is great problem /takes much more time then before (with TW1.3). ...because I am still looking in config_xyz.txt and trying to fix your bad work. Now, imagine: sometimes I notice that I something forgot, so I must run TW2 again, then publish and then again fix that problem manually... By this hovewer You push me to do what I did not want: manually code my VTs in Immervision`s Pureplayer Pro.
I bought TW, cause wanted to be quick in producing VTs. But now i am spending a lot of time with nonsence. Who will pay for my time? You sold me buggy sw and still offer free upgrade only for new customers...

2. How are You able to make such offer:
"Buy our not working product now and we will give you free upgrade for it..."
Dear Easypano team members (yes, also humans - humans, who are also shopping...), WOULD YOU BUY SOMETHING LIKE THAT ???

What is the solution???
We are humans too... We are able to understand that your programmers are people like us and make errors... But what is very bad - if you disregard your customers. As you mentioned - still there are some bugs = why not to take care for them? Why ask me to buy new upgrade??? NOT PROFESSIONAL!!!

SO, EITHER YOU GIVE ME WORKING TW 2 (or its JAVA!!! follover TW2.1 or 2.52539878008787.0978077 or whatever number you like) or I (and think many others too) forget of EP
(+ I will transform my company from producing VTs to producing Immervision code for VT photographers (you know - maybe it would be the right business for us, here in eastern europe...) - how many boys here would like my services???)
Try to understand me - I spend money for your sw and it is not working. You can not imagine how many times i became angry for your Easypano... Why should we believe you???
Only you can rectify it.
By being serious. By being professional. Then we can forget...
PLEASE, GIVE US WORKING TW 2 !!!

-------------
Mgr. Igor Socha - BRAHMA VISION, Slovakia
My Link
Sorry 4 my English

Message posted by jodyberry on July-19-2007 at 1:09pm

United States
May-02-2007
45 Posts

<<In order to aknowledge your long term support and our apology for Tourweaver2.0, Easypano offered free upgrading for the users of Panoweaver4.0 to Panoweaver5.0.>>

I'm not sure how support for TW would equate to a free upgrade for Panoweaver (which I don't even have). How about a free upgrade from existing TW2 customers to TW3?

Thanks...

Message posted by 360pancam on July-19-2007 at 1:50pm

United States
May-17-2007
8 Posts

Joe:

Your letter is welcomed.

I, and many other loyal users, appreciate the fact that EP cares, is trying its professional best, listens to and communicates with it's customers. We want EP to succeed and ourselves to benefit from your success; we also trust EP will offer a free upgrade to all TW2 registered owners.

While Panoweaver and Tourweaver go hand in hand, they also are mutually exclusive to each other; I thought the Panoweaver upgrade was offered due to the fact that the price point was the same from versions 3 to 4 as it was from 3 to 5. Am I mistaken?

Gordon

Message posted by tbrusson on July-19-2007 at 3:52pm

France
October-23-2006
164 Posts

Dear Joe,

As a TW 2.0 user, I Support you effort in bringing the best VR software ever.

I reckon a company specialized in VR (whatever realviz, easypano, etc) can not compete in term of productivity with companies like microsoft, adobe. The point is that the market is limited to a few customers (compared to other software like photo processing) and you just can not afford a big team of developpers since it would not be profit efficient. One has to keep in mind that easypano (and it the same process for other companies in that field like realviz) is small software company which is dealing with a restricted market and its means are therefore restricted)

I won't blame you for trying you best, elaborating what I considered as the best vr tour software in the market (easy to use). There was more problem with communication. The release of TW 2.0 was somehow disapointing not so much because of the software itself but because of the delayed release and the lack of information related to it. I would not blame you because of bugs but I mind the lack of feed back related to some issues with TW2.0. Here is my 2 cents advise : wehter you are ready or not, buggy or not, please give us more feed back.

I think easypano has the potential to release the best VR software in the market if you take your customers remarks into consideration. Some peope can be tough with you and forget you are dealing with a very specialized market with restrained man power (otherwise it would not be profitable).

There is no other companies in the market which provide better software at the time being (vista3D is not smooth enough; immervision if great if you handcode the whole thing but then it's not time efficient, flashvr.de is not smooth either and spi just takes too long to load).

I would advise you to release a TW3.0 beta valid free of charge for all users for a period of 30 days in order to get feed back and improvements from customers. After that period you could decide wheter the TW2.0 would be allowed to upgrade to TW3.0 for free(which in that case would be somehow fair since the TW2.0 projects were not 100% bug free but I let it up to you). Considering panoweaver, it's just another market and personaly I am just interested by the tourweaver possbilities)

You are doing great, customers are demanding but we just want you to be the best on the market.

in the wish list

since it's flash based, having ther possibilities to either load all the pano at once at the beginning or only one after another (on request) and then dispalying the percentage of panos loaded like in all flash animation
having the posibility to have the map directly displayed in full screen mode withou clicking on the right button
having the possiblity to have a png toolbar in full screen mode displayed or not
having the possiblity to load either a full screen or a reduced vr pano (for those who would not use the full screen mode)
having the possibility of using png files for transparency effect
having the possibility to load only part on the vr pic such as "zoomify" examples (check zoomify company which deals with high res pic))
improving the smoothness of the pan
having the possibilities to upload the tour directly through ftp (inside the software)
going flash is the way to go in my opinion (immervision decided to release a flash version too; 3Dvista as well but not very smooth, flashvr.de too) since you can get more control on the loading process and some extra. Basicaly you have more control on telling people : wait, the thing is loading but after that, you will be trouble free)
Once a flash application is successfully loaded, it usually runs flawlessly unless heavy javascript application

So to sum up : keep on going, check what's being done on the hand coded way, more feed back and you will get more happier customers. I have confidence in you company and I am supporting you effort

thierry

Message posted by marktold on July-21-2007 at 8:54am

May-09-2003
348 Posts

Now this is scarry.

TW 3.0 release date seems to be neer. From what I read I would expect it within 30 days. But read this line from the open letter to customers

Quote

becuase it is published by a testing version of Tourweaver3.0, even not a beta.

Unqute

I state it here again. Do one thing at the time. Focus everything on a perfect JavaVersion instead of a not so perfect Java and not so perfect Flash.

Regards Markus

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Nikon D70s, Sigma 8 mm, 4 to 12 shots, Agnos MrotatorTShort, PTGui, PS CS3, and lots of other software :-)

Message posted by chapt0r on July-21-2007 at 4:38pm

March-19-2007
44 Posts

I appreciate the letter, and do agree with all of the above comments. But the main thing that did stick out was that you offered the upgrade to Panoweaver for being loyal TW customers. I have purchased both, but unfortunately I don't use my Panoweaver License for any of our Tours after we figured out we didn't have to with our equipment, I just use Tourweaver.

W

Message posted by mustang_lex on July-21-2007 at 9:39pm

Canada
August-05-2006
30 Posts

Joe, give us some answers.

Will the TW2.0 purchasers like myself get the TW3 upgrade FREE. Thats a crucial answer that will determine your standing as a "professional" virtual tour software company.

Let me remind you that no-one yet I have known is happy for a free Panoweaver upgrade considering this is a TW issue.

And also I feel and including myslef, that there will be a very very low percentage that TW2.0 buyers will actually open their wallet to the TW3 upgrade. 2.0 is a mess.

-------------
Alex - Graphics Designer

http://www.ihearyadevelopments.com/virtualtour