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Right, that makes sense -- the classic benefits versus features balance -- which is, of course, made more complex by the fact that one user's benefit is another
by gpjt 16y ago
Right, that makes sense -- the classic benefits versus features balance -- which is, of course, made more complex by the fact that one user's benefit is another user's feature, but that's not to say that there's no balance to strike. One thing we did with our earlier product was to have a "How we can help..." section on the front page, naming three markets, with links through to separate pages for each, naming appropriate problem and solution/benefits for each. Perhaps we need to do the same thing here.
Re: what we're better at than Google spreadsheets -- our big benefits come in simplifying complex spreadsheets, by using programmerly techniques such as objects/lists/NumPy arrays in cells, and in automated parallelisation for large calculations. These are definitely power user features, for normal cashflow spreadsheets and the like there's no advantage to using Dirigible instead of Google.
(Random thought: we're currently using the example of calculating the orbits of the planets to show a bunch of those features off. We chose that example specifically because it's simple enough for most technical people to grok pretty quickly and doesn't require any real domain knowledge to see what's going on. Perhaps we also need more industry-specific examples to make the same point -- eg. pricing portfolios of exotic options for the finance guys.)
Re: concurrent server support -- well, I guess a bit of A/B testing might be in order -- with a mind to the fact that we'll need to keep running the tests as time goes on and we (fingers crossed) cross the chasm.