washere wrote:

I think a browser based project for Hyper Plan would take a huge chunk
of time (ie Andy's money in reality). Further, the browsers would crash
on the main strength and power of HP, large files with many cards. It
would be just a commissioned toy at Andy's expense. Soon forgotten and
abandoned by a few.

Browsers have come a long way. But it would certainly be very expensive in terms of my time, only to probably end up with a slower and less rich UI.

Secondly, a Dropbox remote connection might be more wise, simply saving
the working file in cloud and being able to work in it with a cache on
desktop.

I do this a lot between my various Mac and Windows machines and it works very well. Hyper Plan detects when another machine has updated the plan and refreshes.

There are various database locking algorithms for multi users.
But the age old simple: one user at a time assess would be easy to
implement. Also if gdrive or onedrive have easier protocols/API set to
suit HP, then they can be used instead of it as well as Dropbox to save
him time.

Storing your files in DropBox folders doesn't result in true concurrency. If 2 people write to the file at the same time, you end up with a conflict and a second copy of the file.

A server component would allow full concurrency and access control.

Do the DropBox APIs handle locking and true concurrency? I haven't looked into it.

Finally, the project like any similars needs a large client base to find
it, which means needing PR. To get PR, users are needed and word of
mouth. Catch 22. The main way to have a breakthrough is to have an
easier interface introduction for newbies to it AND also people who are
not tech savvy.

Realistically I don't think Hyper Plan is ever going to sell in the mass market. It is for a techie audience.

This is a problem infoqube, similarly comprehensive and innovative,
suffers from too. In HP's case the cure is easy: free floating cards
mode. The cards in free mode, can be auto-threaded together in ordered
relationships to conform with current modes easily too. The user can
then edit those threadings.

I think that would be a useful addition. But I don't think it is suddenly going to make my fortune. ;0)

That free fliating mode would be the classic Visual/White/Cork Board of
index cards a.k.a. Kanban everyone knows by sight and will dive in
intuitively. HP would then be an enticing and easy self-training
software and they learn more from there. And will then recommend it to
others, mainly online which is what really matters. This is the key as
simple logic shows.

It might be an easier way in for the less technical people. However this can be a 2-edged sword as less technical people tend to be more price sensitive and require a lot more technical support.

--
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com