A Message from Accordance Management

[Michele]

While all of our teams have been working diligently to ensure that Accordance continues to be the excellent Bible software you have come to know and rely upon, we realize that we have been a bit too quiet about Accordance’s plans for the future and the current state of our development.

First, we would like to thank you for your passion, your patience, and your prayers over the past few years. You have let us know how much Accordance means to both your studies and your ministries. You have shared that you were praying for the company and its staff during the pandemic, during severe weather events, and other times of trial. And you have encouraged us in many ways, even when sharing concerns or criticisms.

We are deeply grateful for our amazing customers.

Program Development

With regard to program development, our immediate priorities are getting a new syncing solution out the door as soon as possible, as well as delivering on the Accordance Cloud.

 

We want to make absolutely sure that we meet the standard of excellence you expect from Accordance, and not over-promise and under-deliver. We also do not want to promise target dates only to have to revise them due to unforeseen difficulties. However, we can say that a beta version of Accordance 14.10 is set to be released within the coming weeks.

 

After multiple delays, significant progress has been made by our programmers on the development of a more modern approach to synchronization in Accordance. The new syncing feature will allow users to manage and synchronize all files directly (without Dropbox), including file preferences, library modules, and user content across all supported platforms. Our team is currently testing the feature to ensure that it safely transfers notes, highlights, and files across desktop and mobile programs, and the tests appear to be successful. This means that we are in the “clean-up” stage of development. Once the beta is ready, we will notify our users and begin the process of thorough testing and bug fixing before the official release.

 

Regarding Accordance Cloud, we originally partnered with a third-party programming team to speed up development of our web-based app. However, due to consistent issues in communication, and failures to meet expectations and deadlines, we made the late-game decision to change course and focus on in-house development rather than deliver a sub-par product. This has required a significant amount of work on the part of our programming team to salvage and integrate work that had already been done with new development. The setback suffered was major, and the delay in delivering upon this feature has been greater than we anticipated.

 

We do want to emphasize, though, that this project has not been abandoned. Progress is being made and the work that is being done now should pay dividends in the future, as much of it will also be used to improve our mobile apps in future updates.

Module Development and Corrections

Many of you have asked about the development of specific new titles for use in Accordance, or updates to our existing sets/series. We are always working with publishers to secure the rights to highly requested works, and our module development team has able to develop a significant number of new releases so far this year, including anticipated titles like the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Beale, et al.) and updates to series like the excellent Word Biblical Commentary. In addition, we were the first major Bible software platform to release the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (EHLL). While we do have to prioritize customer interest in choosing which titles to develop next, please know that we are keeping track of user requests and will do everything we can to bring you the resources you need in Accordance.

We are especially happy to announce that we are working on some highly anticipated updates to beloved series such as the Tyndale Commentary series, the New Studies in Biblical Theology series, and many more.

There have also been questions about how the corrections to modules users submit in-app are handled. We have been reworking the process of how corrections are implemented in order to make it more efficient. While this process was originally handled by a single team member, going forward all of our module developers will be contributing to the correction of modules. Please continue to submit corrections to typos, and similar errors that you may notice in our modules. Your efforts in this are deeply appreciated. Please remember though that some errors beyond typos may be a part of the original work and would need to be corrected by the publisher.

Rest assured; we intend Accordance to be around for the long-haul. We continue to regularly welcome new users and new academic partners to our Accordance family, as more professors, students, pastors and lay people experience the joy of using Accordance for Bible research. We work to serve you in your study of the Bible and our motivation remains the same after 30 years of being in the Bible software industry. The company is financially secure, and all of our teams are working to ensure that Accordance has a bright future ahead of it.

 

The Accordance Management Team

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

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