Is Madcap maintenance reasonable? your thoughts...

[yonatanlehman]

Just got my annual reminder to renew my maintenance
I took the opportunity to have a moan about what's bugging me as a Flare user

Then I thought that perhaps I 'm being harsh, maybe I'm going things that most users don't try to do;
So here is what I wrote - what do you think? Let's make our voices as users heard !

I will have to consider if I want to update the maintenance or not. The main reasons being:

1) Support is sometimes very slow and not responsive, sometimes I get the feeling I'm being brushed off as a default and I need a few emails back and forth to persuade them that I indeed found a bug.   
I have reported many bugs over the last few years and have never been told that the bug was fixed.   
In fact today I found a bug in the search and did not even bother to report it because of the agro and apparent waste of time in reporting bugs that are in any case never fixed.

2) Madcap seem to have a policy of favoring the introduction of new features over fixing bugs that have existed for years - so why did I need the latest version? 
I realize this is standard practice in many companies driven by Marketing considerations, and perhaps Madcap is trying to be Agile (i.e provide minimal viable products).   
But as a user, I don't want minimal viable products -  I want features that already exist to work properly before trying to use new features.
In any case, I'm scared to use the new features since they are typical "half baked", initial versions.


So am being too harsh? To lenient? Am I missing the point?

Cheers and good health to all!

[NorthEast]

I'd agree with (1). I tend not to need help using Flare, and usually just contact support to clarify that something is a bug, and see if there's a workaround.
As I'm not in the same time zone as the US, and on Bronze/email support, that often takes several days to resolve.

I do get notifications about bug fixes though, which I think has improved in the last year or two.

[wclass]

The main reason I paid for maintenance is so I could get the automatic updates.

As for support, I am also in a different time zone so only had bronze, but the (very) few times I have needed support, email overnight was fine.

[rogersm]

Similar to the previous post, the main benefit is the automatic updates. The bronze email support is okay for random queries or issues.
I think many software companies concentrate on introducing new features ahead of fine tuning existing features.

[Nita Beck]

Speaking only for myself, as an independent contractor/consultant: Yes! I would not work without having a maintenance plan from MadCap, and a platinum one at that. I had the same philosophy for the 10 years I was a RoboHelp user (until Macromedia screwed us users.)

I get the maintenance plan for a couple of reasons:

-- I want updates. But it's not just because I want new features and bug fixes. (BTW and coincidentally, I happened to count how many bugs MadCap claims to have fixed in Flare 2020: 124. I have no basis of comparison with other authoring tool vendors, but that's 124 bugs in addition to 4-5 new and enhanced features.) I want updates also because I want to be confident that my online outputs will be compatible with the latest browsers. I trust MadCap to have vetted what Flare generates against the latest browsers.

-- I want to be able to pick up the phone and get priority service. I realize that I have the advantage of being in the US and that picking up the phone and getting help isn't as easy for those on different continents. I probably call for support 2-3 times a month, sometimes more often when I'm in the middle of a heavy project. For me as a freelancer, time is money, and I don't want to spend any more time than I have to spinning my wheels trying to solve something. This doesn't mean that I pester TS with trivial questions, although I could, as I've paid for that. I tend to seek their help when I'm stumped about something.

[lorynj]

I wouldn't be without support.

I truly value the feature updates, and have found that MadCap have fixed at least one bug I've reported in each of the last three or four releases.

[Chicago_HPT]

I agree with Nita, for most of the same reasons. But, like Nita, I also pay for Platinum support so I don't know what the other tiers (or just "tier," now?) are like. When I call support, someone picks up almost immediatley. I think the longest I've ever waited is about a minute and a half. Usually it's within seconds. The support staff I speak with are always helpful and have stayed on the phone as long as it took to address the issue. And if they can't figure something out, they offer for me send them the project so they can go over it with a fine tooth comb.

My personal experience is that MadCap, by far, has the best support of any product I've ever used. But I'm also in the U.S. and, as I said, I use Platinum support. It sounds like my experience is not universal.

Cheers,
-jeff