Many people remember the disastrous Service Release for Time Matters 9 which wound up corrupting data. LexisNexis pulled the Service Release after less than a week. On a smaller scale, LexisNexis has done it again. SR3 for TM 10 was supposed to update a number of links to other programs, including Worldox GX2, Timeslips 2010, PaperPort 12, HotDocs Player 2010 and, most importantly, Word 2010.
But only a week after SR3 was out, Loretta Rupert had to go public advising firms using Word 2010 not to install the Service Release. It seems that digital signatures were missing on macros, some key dialog boxes did not appear and, most importantly, the release crashed both Word and Time Matters when implemented on a a 64-bit operating system.
None of these functions are particularly obscure, and the difficulties of running 32-bit apps such as Time Matters on 64-bit systems are well known. Any programmer doing a simple code verification should have stumbled on them.
Once again the brain drain of programmers and outsourcing of some programming functions have made themselves felt. And what about Quality Control, you say? After all, these are basic issues. Oh yeah, some of the key QC staff has left as well.
Now of course, virtually nobody is actually using Word 2010 as yet, so the problem is largely theoretical. That is not the issue, however. This sort of error raises the question of whether LexisNexis has the capacity to put out reliable releases, independent of whether they have the leadership personnel or indeed the willpower to do so. It increasingly appears that the answer to this question is “No.”
But only a week after SR3 was out, Loretta Rupert had to go public advising firms using Word 2010 not to install the Service Release. It seems that digital signatures were missing on macros, some key dialog boxes did not appear and, most importantly, the release crashed both Word and Time Matters when implemented on a a 64-bit operating system.
None of these functions are particularly obscure, and the difficulties of running 32-bit apps such as Time Matters on 64-bit systems are well known. Any programmer doing a simple code verification should have stumbled on them.
Once again the brain drain of programmers and outsourcing of some programming functions have made themselves felt. And what about Quality Control, you say? After all, these are basic issues. Oh yeah, some of the key QC staff has left as well.
Now of course, virtually nobody is actually using Word 2010 as yet, so the problem is largely theoretical. That is not the issue, however. This sort of error raises the question of whether LexisNexis has the capacity to put out reliable releases, independent of whether they have the leadership personnel or indeed the willpower to do so. It increasingly appears that the answer to this question is “No.”
We are stuck in TM 7.0, SR 2C w/Billing Matters, since we have nearly $50 K of time putting in the data when we switched from TimeSlips (also a POS once it stopped being independently owned!!). I just can not justify doing any thing more than "making it work". TM was and could be a great product, but in a solo firm it is such overkill that I just wish I could find an alternative that would connect with Thunderbird and Quickbooks and that I can afford to implement and run!!
Posted by: Bob Browning | July 13, 2010 at 05:39 PM