At the beginning of March, we released our road map for the second quarter of 2012. It lets developers know exactly what to expect in Volume 2, for every product, on every platform. By unveiling what’s coming, developers will be able to anticipate what new features they’ll be able to add to their own projects. If they don’t see a feature they would like, they can always request one through our support system, Direct-Trac. We try to accommodate as many customer requests as we can every release.
With Volume 2, we’re adding even more tools to our Mobile MVC controls to help you bring the best functionality possible to your mobile applications. Whether you need something as simple as an interactive check box, or you need to embed multiple sub-gauges inside of a larger gauge, we’re working to deliver components and controls that will give you an advantage over other mobile developers. And even though it seems the .NET community is racing to develop mobile tools in anticipation of Windows 8, you can be sure that we’re not leaving any platforms behind. Take a look at all of the additions we’re working on for our Windows Forms, Silverlight, and WPF controls. Also check out what we’re working on in our reporting and business intelligence suites.
Our road map is significantly different from those released by our competitors. Ours is concise. We describe features in simple terms. We tell you exactly what’s being included in every suite; we don’t waste time giving you vague ideas about what direction we’re possibly going with our controls.
Ours is comprehensive. We report each feature we’re working on, even if it’s only an optimization of existing functionality. And we’re consistent with our road map. We have a standard for publishing it. We only look at what’s coming, not what we’ve done in the past. We release a road map for every volume of Essential Studio—one every three months. That’s more frequent than anyone else in the market.
Take a look at some of our competitor’s road maps. They’re inconsistent, many are cryptic, and overall they lack transparency. We’re proud of our road map. It’s transparent, meaning you’ll know what we know, and it helps you plan your development for the future. Maintaining this transparency while releasing so many controls each quarter isn’t easy, but it’s what we’ve always done.