ADM -- in case u were wondering

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jul 5, 2007 at 04:03 PM

Jan, given the gentlemanly way you wrote that letter, and the lack of response, I wonder how you would write it today.

Daly

Jan Rifkinson wrote:
>Daly, I certainly understand your frustration as I share much of it, myself. However,
>I am of the opinion that—for some reason—ADM was Eric’s baby for the most part & Arne
>had neither the time nor inclination to be involved. I think ADM was very much a
>sideline for him. Below is my post to Arne. I rcvd no response.
> >
>|—————————————-[ Start ]
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> >Imported from: (WinClipBrd)
>Import date:
>2/12/2007 11:17:33 AM
> >From: Jan Rifkinson <

>
>To:
>

>
>Date: Monday, February 12, 2007
>Subj: ADM
>situation
> >Hi Arne, We’ve not corresponded before but—in desperation…
>well,
>maybe extreme frustration & a little anger—I’m writing you as a
>last
>resort.
> >From early in ADM’s development, I spent hours & hours of my time
>testing,
>suggesting, discussing, helping & proselytizing for ADM. My
>testimonial for ADM
>appears on http://www.adm21.net/testimonials.html.
>I had the time to spend on ADM
>because I’m semi-retired & I was
>interested in the product as I have been in Lotus
>Agenda, Ecco Pro,
>& Zoot.
> >As a consequence of my participation in ADM matters, Eric
>Sommner
>voluntarily offered me a free lifetime license to ADM &, later, a
>‘piece’ of
>the company if I would help write part of the help system.
> >Except for the ADM license I
>excused myself from any formal
>relationship w ADM. And to be honest, I would have paid
>for an ADM
>license & told Eric so.
> >I continued being supportive, reporting bugs,
>making suggestions &
>helping other users master ADM. I started a support email list
>on
>yahoo (which I eventually folded for lack of interest). When Eric
>moved to China I
>helped debug betas via Skype, a tedious process to
>say the least.
> >Then ever so
>slowly, it became apparent that Eric was withdrawing from
>the process &
>communication with him was sporadic despite pleas from a
>number of users to tell us
>what was *really* going on. Everyone
>understood that there might be financing
>problems & I believe all
>anyone wanted was some kind of *realistic* status
>report.
> >Some of us became privileged members of the development list and some
>of us
>took that membership & the responsibility that came with it very
>seriously. I know I
>did. So did others. Those who were most critical
>of ADM’s seemingly haphazard
>development path were removed from this
>list early on. Communications with an
>editor at the SKYPE journal was
>severed for perceived slights on Eric’s
>girlfriend.
> >After asking for clarifications & asking about further
>communications
>and after asking about the status of the program & after trying
>to
>mount intelligent dialogue about the direction of ADM & after getting
>responses
>that seemed less than candid from Eric & after closing the
>users list down for lack of
>interest—there hadn’t been a posting in
>months—Eric summarily removed me from
>the developers list because
>he thought I was being negative. He recently removed
>another
>supporter, citing a program he saw in China about censorship. Can
>you
>imagine what this looks like in the public domain when someone pops up
>& asks
>about ADM & is told this story?
> >I had a guy write to my personal address (from
>somewhere in Europe)
>asking about ADM 4 because he had been unsuccessful contacting
>anyone
>@ ADM. I responded & forwarded his email to every ADM address I had. I
>don’t
>know if he got his answer but I certainly had no response.
> >So why do I tell you all this?
>Not for a pat on the back. Not for a
>thank you. Not for money.
> >But to say that, in my
>opinion, the current state of ADM—from all I
>know—is truly shameful. It’s a good
>product. I use it even today
>but w/o tech support, no sense of progress for western
>markets, an
>uncommunicative CEO who seems immature, vindictive & petulant
>at
>times, it’s hard—nay almost impossible—to remain committed to
>the project.
>It seems I am by myself when it comes to ADM.
> >But what do I know? Not much. And why is
>that? Because Eric, the front
>man for ADM, has alienated so many of us that everyone I
>know who, at
>one time, were enthusiastic ADM supporters, have moved on for lack
>of
>communication from Eric, no customer service or tech support, nor a
>meaningful
>road map of product development, and a sense that they paid
>for a beta (true) since—
>to date—a commercial, final version of
>ADM 4 has ever been released to the best of
>anyone’s knowledge. I
>can’t defend that any more as, at this point, even I have to
>admit it
>seems to be true.
> >As I understand it, Arne, you have a viable company with
>many
>impressive clients. The only way you got there was with a good
>product, hard
>work & customer support. This is what was lacking with
>ADM.
> >Zoot, a 16 bit
>competitor is now being converted to 32 bits & then
>moving into RTF, etc. Yet this 16
>bit, text only product still has
>thousands of users & supporters. These people, who
>constantly,
>periodically & respectfully communicate with Zoot’s author, Tom
>Davis,
>even volunteered to give him up front money if it would help him in
>his
>development because they have confidence in him, something he has
>engendered
>simply by communicating with the Zoot community in an up
>front manner. This is what
>Eric missed out on.
> >As a practical matter, I don’t actually know what purpose this
>email
>will serve. I have nothing against ADM or Eric, certainly not you but
>I am
>frustrated.
> >The only practical matter that I can think of is that I’d like
>my
>testimonial on the ADM site removed since I can no longer support
>the
>product.
> >Ref: http://www.adm21.net/testimonials.html
> >Well, Arne,
>thank you for your time & early support of ADM. I don’t
>know what your interest is in the
>program at this time but I wish all
>this had turned out differently. I’m convinced it
>could have but I
>fear it’s time has passed. Hopefully, I’m
>wrong.
> >Sincerely,
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