New beta on the horizon?

I am not in hurry. Beta6 works very well for me, except for some known problems, and I can live with it for some more time of course. Though the wrong support of non US keyboards is getting more and more annoying as I come to depend on the product (even though this is still a beta and being a developer I understand what it means).

There is also a worry developing about what -- good or bad -- is happening on Parallels side.

After 4 weeks of beta updates once a week (and even more as we moved from beta1 to beta6 from April 6 to April 30 or so), public testers haven't seen any new build of the product for the last 15 days. This is most probably just ordinary, nothing so special happening except heavy development and debugging work in progress, but anyway I have the feeling we should get a bit of schedule information from Parallels. At the same time, the rate of contribution by Parallels people to this forum has significantly decreased. It surely means more time for important development or quality assurance work, but it feels unusual compared to what happened during April timeframe.

I'm not saying you should disclose when the next beta will be available (time will tell), but even something like "not before [pick-a-number] full week(s) from now" would probably be much appreciated by testers: that would be enough to let people know where the product is going.

Thanks for this great beta product which is set to become a great final product!

 

I fully agree. It would be great to know which issues they are working on. A lot of reports on issues have been posted in the forums and it would be great to know a bit about what to expect in the next release cycle.

I've preordered and are also awaiting to see when a finished product are getting closer (so a new beta with a list of what they're working on would suffice).

 

I do not blame Parallels for a decrease in the frequency of releasing betas. I saw so much whining after every beta release.

Why didn't you fix this?
You broke that!
You need to test more before releasing betas!

I thought Parallels showed their dedication to the product by frequently releasing betas. It showed everyone that they are constantly working and that they wanted to get updates out to us as quick as possible.

What they got in return were rants and emotional criticisms often times instead of bug reports. People apparently don't understand that BETA means.... IT'S NOT FINISHED YET!

Don't whine because it doesn't work perfectly.... file your bug and wait for the fix. It's obvious to me they are stomping out the bugs quickly.

I remember one complaint from someone saying that the software was Alpha quality at best and should never have been distributed so widely.

I'm ecstatic I have this software available to me, but I'm sure some of the whining in the forums has made Parallels question releasing it as early as they did.

 

Personally, I think now they are working on the big issues and reliability and stability. The beta release cycle was insane - and even if they release a new beta in the next couple weeks, it's still a quick beta cycle. The problem with the internet oriented consumers of today is they don't see the cost in production of something, and they don't see the work behind it.

I personally think the early fast release cycle made some people think that if betas are not being released every week or two, something is wrong. I think that's unrealistic.

 

Actually, while I am the first to violate that rule with my product, products with incomplete feature sets are usually called alfa and beta is reserved for a product with a full featureset but with incomplete testing (and not all th ebugs are fixed).

I agree that they may have been too agressive with the early releases and should have labeled them apha. That would have tempered expectations somewhat and maybe minimized the downloads from the faint at heart. I suspect they felt the pressure to get something out as soon as possible after bootcamp to stake out their territory and were not prepared for the inundation of interested consumers. I assume theylearned a lesson and are slowing down to get the details right before another release.

For what its worth, I also preordered and am looking forward to a stable prooduct that supports USB when its ready. An update on their progress would be nice, but I am happy to see that more time is spent developing and less answering everyone's questions (including mine!).

Cheers,

Roch

 

My point wasn't that something is wrong, but that something suddenly changed. And it came without warning. A simple message like "Dear beta testers, the insane release rate of our betas will now slow down. Please don't expect any new beta before at least 3 or 4 weeks from now" would have been very useful and good communication.

 

They're doing a great job. When they have a beta ready, no doubt they will release it.

 

I think beta6 marked the somewhat of an end of what I'd call a 'traditional' alpha stage, where the features expected on a final release are all aboard, regardless of whether they actually work or not. Now comes the point where they refine the product to make stuff, well, work for everybody.

 

I bet that when the official version is released, the first question from many will be "when is version 2 coming?"



David Jameson

 

I agree, seems that all the features are here now. The product seems to have gotten rid of Kernel panics, and there was a tormendous input on little glitches and problems. I guess Parallels is tackling those right now, and as always archieving 80% is fast and the last 20% take time. We might enter the 'real beta now' and I suspect there will be RC1 appearing shortly.

 

After all the complaints about the last releases I don't blame them for being cautious. I wish they felt free to continue to use us to test but some users just don't understand what beta/alpha is. Yeah I know they said Beta but who cares. It's software that is not ready yet and people should understand that or just not download it.

 

I can think of a couple of features I'd like to see get added to the "real" release. How about drag and drop between OS X and Workstations client. Or a shared clipboard. That'd be a huge help.

I'm not complaining and get by as is, but it sure would be nice.

 

still regularly fails to sleep on my macbook pro

I'd say beta 6 is awesome and the only thing I would consider using to run XP on my macbook pro. I'd also like to point out that if I close the lid on my laptop while I'm running a Parallels VM my machine reboots itself.

This wouldn't be a problem if I were smart enough to remember that this happens. As it stands I'm an idiot and have lost hours of work as a result.

Assuming that 40,000 people bought this product at it's reduced (not yet released, beta) price of $39.95. I'd guess that $1,598,000.00 will be enough to ensure we have a beautiful release within the next month or so. Let's not forget that these are the die-hard developers that have released major updates to the beta on Saturday nights.

To the development team: Thank you for what you've given us. You could have stamped a release number on beta 6 and you would have kept at least 75% of your customer base. Thanks for hanging in there for the last of us.

RC solves my last remaining challenge, I can suspend and resume as normal. An amazing development cycle. Thank you so much.

 

I guess. Personally I don't think expecting constant betas is realistic, and I think it's just as unnecessary to require extra hand holding because the betas might not come at the same pace.

This is a beta program, not a weekly podcast or tv show where you expect the product to be released at a specific time and date. Does this really need explained for people not to stress out? I'm asking that seriously. I think we will be fine waiting patiently.

 

Even though I discourage people from asking when the next beta release will come in most situations, I actually have to agree that it's just a little disconcerting for them to have grown very (VERY) quiet over the past 2 weeks. Not just in beta releases because that is hardly a big deal, but in their support responses within the forum (at least within the major mac os topics I view regularly). That is the sort of thing that starts people's minds racing with paranoid thoughts, and I have wondered too briefly if there might be a problem of some kind (legal maybe?) in the background. However 15 days of almost silence is hardly enough time to start a panic, I'd suggest that we just enjoy the great beta6 product for now and wait until June. If nothing's happening yet by then (including announcements and forum responses) then I'd maybe send an email to parallels support directly asking if everything's ok with them. I would imagine it's all good though.

Cheers,
dkelley

 

Olivier,
Sorry if it feels like lack of feedback from us. Most of you guys are right. We have a lot of feedbacks now and working hard on all reported issues. We feel that Beta6 is quit stable now - no more reports about crashed disks and we are able to slow down rate of public builds and deliver stable and improved product that way. We are working hard and most of the issues currently reported on forums and by mail are already fixed. Stay tuned - the next public build are coming!

Thank you for understanding!

 

.
At a guess, this thing has been a bit like a runaway train.

Isn't it hard to find your way to the plug draining the swamp, when your up to your ass in aligators.
.

 

Andrew,

Thanks for the update (which will make 99% of us happy I am sure). Keep up the good work. I think you've built up a lot of good will with your product and word like this now and then will go a long way to maintaining it!

Cheers,

Roch

 

Andrew,

Thank you very much for your contribution to this thread. Even though this was the picture of the game I had in mind, it is best to read it from you. Yes, the Beta6 is quite stable and as I said in my initial post in this thread, I live and work quite happily with it. This is why I bought the license two weeks ago by the way. It was very good to read this clarification from you and I thank you again.

Olivier Mascia.