Forum's post disappeared

[ReformedDoc]

I have every right to ask them to make a statement since I spent close to $10k last year alone, & I plan on investing more as they get all the kinks worked out. It is up to them, to be honest and not rush anything after being in that position in the past.

[ReformedDoc]

9 minutes ago, Kristin said:

 

Hi @A.D. Riddle,

My understanding is that there was an internal deadline Accordance had wanted to meet, rather than the pressure coming from the users. I was in the beta group and no one in the beta group felt it was even near close to being released.

Thank you @Kristin

[Brian K. Mitchell]

26 minutes ago, A.D. Riddle said:

On 6/12/2024 at 1:52 PM, A. Smith said:

There was a time when accordance wouldn’t release or even announce features until they were fully developed and fit for public use…

To which some other guy responded: A policy to which they should seriously, seriously consider returning…

A.D.

@A.D. Riddle I think you hit the nail on the head and this is also what I speculate the Accordance team is doing now. Of course this is all just my conjecture but from November 23–26 the Society of Biblical Literature will be holding their annual meeting and prehaps the Accordance team has been spending most of their time and resources to get something ready for then.

[cweber]

Nobody was happy about that v14 initial release and certainly do not want a repeat of that experience.

 

I recently finally upgraded from 13.4 to the latest and am finding 14.09 stable.

 

I agree that the owner needs to be more engaged, not doing so infers their all about profit, which is okay for a business, but be honest with your customers if that’s all it is to you.
 

Many of this audience genuinely are passionate about our faith and Accordance is more to us than just a tool, it enables us in certain areas of ministry.

 

A company run for profit versus a passionate owner are different.

 

[Brian K. Mitchell]

54 minutes ago, cweber said:

The team at Accordance deserves appreciation for all their hard work and dedication. As a small team, they face immense pressure from both management and customers, making their work particularly challenging.....Their efforts are greatly valued and do not go unnoticed. Their dedication to maintaining and enhancing Accordance is deeply appreciated. Keep up the great work, and thank you for all that you do!

@cweber amen and amen! 

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

We have certainly learned from the Accordance 14 rollout to take the necessary time needed to ensure we deliver a solid product instead of rushing something out the door to meet a deadline.

 

With that said, we also need to provide our customers at least some regular status updates about the overall direction of Accordance, as well as updates on projects, without over-promising specific deadlines. Our management is working on this as we speak, and I believe the majority of our customer base who loves and cares for Accordance will be thoroughly pleased with the announcements. We don't answer to a board of investors. We answer to you. You are our investors. You love and care about and are passionate about our product and are passionate about its success. Without you, we wouldn't exist. Thank you for hanging in there with us, praying for us, and for passionately providing useful and constructive feedback.

 

As a longtime Accordance user myself who has thousands of dollars out of my own pocket invested in the Accordance prior to coming to work here, I'm as passionate about Accordance as you are and consider myself first and foremost a fellow Accordance user. It's the reason I ended up becoming to work here. I consider this job as more than a paycheck. I consider it an opportunity and privilege for me to give back to the Accordance user community and serve you all by being in the game and working hard for all of you.

[ReformedDoc]

You are good in my book from one Doc to another...😁

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Thanks!

[A. Smith]

8 hours ago, cweber said:

A company run for profit versus a passionate owner are different.

 

 

There are different ways to exercise ownership. Hands off, passive-income approaches are not inherently terrible. But it is different from what we’ve known from the A-team. This is a different era. Their approach to customer relations is drastically different. Time will tell if this approach can work as well as the former. I’m finding it helpful to simply spend much less time in the forum, tbh. Removed it from my favorites and daily routine. It’s just not what it was. But that doesn’t mean the software is terrible or the company is dying. 
 

Also, the closing of those threads was predictable by anyone who’s watched this new approach to CR develop…

[Mark Allison]

13 hours ago, Kristin said:

My understanding is that there was an internal deadline Accordance had wanted to meet, rather than the pressure coming from the users. I was in the beta group and no one in the beta group felt it was even near close to being released.

 

Exactly right Kristin. I don't know about an internal deadline, but all the Beta testers were completely appalled/aghast/stunned that version 14 was being released when there were so many well-documented bugs that hadn't been fixed. The Help documentation hadn't even been created! 

Edited July 13 by Mark Allison

[Shane R.]

I don’t want to see Accordance fail either. However transition is hard, and seeing a post disappear from the forums greatly alarmed me that things were not being done correctly. Especially when those posts were made out of concern for the company. There are times when it is necessary to delete posts, when people are hateful, and try to just cause trouble. That does not accurately describe those posts IMHO.

 

At this point is literally a waiting game to see where the software goes, but it certainly was a bad look being portrayed. I am a small, and even insignificant investor, but I don’t invest in something that isn’t going forward. I certainly hope we see forward motion (even on the smallest scale), because I do genuinely like the function of Accordance. I use it daily in the ministry.

[JohnABarnett]

5 hours ago, A. Smith said:

But that doesn’t mean the software is terrible or the company is dying. 

 

You're right. It doesn't necessarily mean it is, and it doesn't necessarily mean it isn't.

 

To me the issue all along that shook my confidence has been one thing: pre-sale advertising of the near release of Accordance Cloud, and accepting pre-sale money from customers based on that advertising.  Then failing to deliver on that feature for more than 6 months. Then a year. Then a year-and-a-half, and now more than that. Bugs happen. This is different.

 

So far as I know, there has never, not once, been acknowledgement of this fact. Management's single, brief statement on everything that's happened has only acknowledged vaguely that "some" customers are experiencing "problems."  

 

If Accordance Cloud was not important to someone, they would definitely not feel this is too terribly important. Everything for them is working well enough. Fine. But I have two observations: First, there are those who feel it is important, and for me at least it is important to speak up rather than shut up. Second, I would hope that even if the cloud is not an important feature-promise to many, most would at least acknowledge that those who do care about this have reason to feel defrauded, if not legally, then practically.

 

Now this might seem overly dramatic to those who don't care about the feature. And the feature itself is less important than the business practice. And the business practice is further exacerbated by the failure to even acknowledge it. I have been waiting all along for this acknowledgement by management.

 

So every three months or so, when threads like these pop up, I make my case until that which was promised and paid for is delivered. Tiresome perhaps to some. Not to me.

 

[Mike Atnip]

My two cents is that it is a very competitive market these days. There are probably not a lot of things left to add to the software that will be a "wow" factor (once cloud and syncing are finalized). As it is, the software already does more than what most of us are even using. All the main modules that general users want to buy are long made. From here on out it will be survival by adding new modules that can generate enough income to pay for updating the software and then (hopefully) also bring in enough income to be able to "splurge" on modules that only a small percentage of users will desire. Or, find new customers. But only so many seminary students enter school each year. And for every one entering seminary, another one is dying.
Twenty five plus years ago, when Bible software was all "new" there were plenty of new modules (old public domain works, etc.) and areas to expand into. Nowadays, what more bells and whistles are needed that all users will gladly pay for, to keep the money rolling in to support survival?

I am saying all this to say that while I feel Accordance oversold itself on 14, I also feel that we users have to understand that the company has to find income from somewhere to stay afloat. Which is why so many software companies are going toward subscription models. Or scraping the bottom of the barrel (Christian romance novels, and the sort) to find modules that can bring in some income.

It's got to be a tough market. A different market than two or three decades ago.

[ReformedDoc]

I think it helps build trust when a company is willing to keep open lines of communication with its customers, it also shows some transparency & integrity. I feel it was out of line for @A.D. Riddleto tell me or anyone not to pressure Accordance so they do not rush something to release with proper testing. This would be on the company itself, not on the customers waiting for the products.

 

I am not upset about it because everyone has different ways to approach these situations, I think it is important to speak up, so that is what I did.

[mbcvida]

The above is spot on! I have had Accordance since the early days and have purchased the modules necessary for my needs. Other than updates, I have not purchased new modules from Accordance. I have the language tools I want and a few commentaries. I am overly pleased with the software; it does everything I want. But I don't want Accordance to fail due to lack of customers. For me, even though I may not purchase much more, I would personally pay a subscription fee to keep the company solvent. Once the market is saturated there is not much a company can do. Accordance is hands down the best platform for original language studies. I would not want to change to an inferior platform when I already have the best. 

[Michel Gilbert]

 

35 minutes ago, Mike Atnip said:

There are probably not a lot of things left to add to the software that will be a "wow" factor. As it is, the software already does more than what most of us are even using.

 

I am saying all this to say that while I feel Accordance oversold itself on 14, I also feel that we users have to understand that the company has to find income from somewhere to stay afloat.

 

It's got to be a tough market.

 

If we take them at their word, they are doing well. They’ve been saying that since the Acc 14 rollout.

 

And as for new features, I could think of dozens, some available in Logos already. For example, L tagged every antecedent to every pronoun. So if you search for “God” in Acc as the subject of a sentence, that is all you will get. In L, you get that and all the other references to God, such as “He”, "You." I will stop here because I already made an occasional reference to a competitor.

[ReformedDoc]

@mbcvidaYou are correct as far as the study of the original languages, Accordance is the best. I have had Logos since about 2000 & Accordance since 2007 I  bought it from Helen & she helped me pick my 1st modules. Two years ago after seeing James White use it during a teaching lesson & finding out it worked on PC now & I still had a license, that was it for me.

 

Last year I invested a lot of money with Accordance, so yes it is important to me they are successful.

 

Accordance is an easier software to use & works better without all the fluff.

[JohnABarnett]

There is no doubt that for original language study, Accordance has been a godsend. There's a reason so many accomplished scholars and teachers feature it in their videos.

 

The portrayal of the current market is no doubt accurate.

 

What concerns me about subscriptions is that the company's motivation to develop gradually shifts from "what will entice users to purchase the new version" to "just enough to make sure users don't cancel their subscription." My experience is that this becomes a significant shift in development, and the user loses. Also, eventually the non-subscription user is caught in the trap of operating system updates that eventually make their version obsolete.

 

Companies have a dilemma, customers have a dilemma. In the end the company will do what it feels it has to do to maintain profitability. But farther along in the continuum, chickens come home to roost when people wake up to the fact that they are getting less for more. I can't say I know where it all ends.

[Michel Gilbert]

I don’t think that Accordance is “hands down” the best, i.e., better than their competitor at original language studies. Besides what I just mentioned about Logos tagging pronoun-antecedent agreement, there is so much more it can/does do that Accordance can’t/doesn’t, or better, like their analytical lexicons showing Hebrew or Greek alignments, some of their charts and tables, and other things. One crucial advantage Logos has is that it went all Unicode in 2006. That means that you can click on any non-English word in any text or tool, even a personal book (Delitzsch’s Modern Hebrew NT in my case) and be led to a lexicon, etc., and most of the time to the correct entry or discussion.

 

It also depends on what you mean by original language study. What Accordance is “hands down” best at is their GUI for original language searches, especially for syntax searches, and therefore searching in general. But that is just one tool among many to help understand the Bible in its original languages.

 

Edit: I challenge anyone with Masters or PhD level training (I’ve got an MA in OT and Semitic Languages and PhD in Hebrew Bible from a Jewish Studies Department) to consider the implications of analysis without including the pronoun-antecedent data. What I do is use Accordance syntax searches and then go to Logos to add this missing data. I know it depends on what your searching for, but it often is highly relevant.

 

Edited July 13 by Michel Gilbert

[ReformedDoc]

@Michel GilbertI am fortunate since I have a top-tier Accordance Library & the same with Logos so I am covered both ways. I have over 5k resources in my Logos library & a Pro subscription.

[Michel Gilbert]

Nice!

[Kristin]

Regarding the comparison, I find Accordance to be far superior for multiple reasons. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Cleaner interface which is organized well for academics and doesn't have a bunch of fluff, like @ReformedDoc said.
2. User Bibles are able to be imported as plain txt. While L went unicode, they still require their personal books to be uploaded as a docx, which on a Mac is a total joke.
3. The txt file also means that I can upload my unadulterated plain text which isn't littered with a bunch of html. (I understand a lot of people want the ability to add footnotes, etc, but if Accordance adds this in the future, I hope that the txt upload remains and option.)
4. I know I'm talking about user bibles a lot, but Accordance is designed so that if I upload my txt, Accordance recognizes my verses and I can scroll in parallel with a published Bible, while L pretty much requires you to use this special code. Not only is that time consuming to format, but it also makes your bible unusable for anything else. With my Accordance txt file, by contrast, I can copy a section and don't need to erase any html litter. 
5. Another issue with the interface is that L wastes a lot of space. Stuff in parallel are sort of "actively separated" or something, with these pointless spaces, while Acc puts the texts right next to each other eliminating distraction. (Maybe this is a setting in L, but if it is, it's not straightforward.) With Accordance, there are very few settings I have changed, since the program is naturally clean and organized.
6. Accordance has a focus on languages, while L seems to have a focus on other stuff, which is fine if you want that, but after spending some time online yesterday looking how to fix that stupid personal book, I quickly learned on other forms (neither Acc or L), that I am not the only person who thinks that the Accordance layout is FAR superior for serious work.

So those are just a few things off the top of my head after messing with L for literally a few days, and I don't like it. It really is the interface I find so repellent.
 

[Michel Gilbert]

This is what I wish for Accordance and Logos:

 

How good and pleasant it is
        when brothers dwell in unity!
     It is like the precious oil on the head,
        running down on the beard,
     on the beard of Aaron,
        running down on the collar of his robes!
     It is like the dew of Hermon,
        which falls on the mountains of Zion!
     For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
        life forevermore.

 

Psalm 133, ESV

[Mark Allison]

1 hour ago, Kristin said:

While L went unicode, they still require their personal books to be uploaded as a docx, which on a Mac is a total joke.

 

Word on a Mac is MUCH better than it used to be. The Accordance team would travel to MacWorld San Francisco every year, and the first thing we would do was to run to the Microsoft booth to see if the latest version of Word could properly handle Hebrew (or any right-to-left language). It was always so frustrating to find that the Mac version still botched it, while the Windows version worked like a charm. 

But those days are long gone. I miss MacWorld, but I don't miss the old days of Word on a Mac!

Edited July 13 by Mark Allison

[Shane R.]

I have 4-5 Bible programs currently installed on my iPad, and on my computer (Mac). I have worked with Bible programs for probably 20 years (Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS and even Palm Pilot). I have helped develop modules for several of those Bible programs. Accordance interface is easy to learn and use. That is why I use it over Logos. Logos has a big learning curve. I have spent this week learning it, and there are some nice things it does, it requires learning the Logos way. Accordance requires less learning if you have a little computer knowledge. Accordance feels more like driving a car, with very nice features, where Logos feels like setting in the cockpit of a jumbo jet, you don’t just press the gas peddle and go.