RE: Bobby turning corporate

To explain the background of Bobby 5.0 - Bobby was moved from a non-profit
company to a for-profit company because CAST was unable to invest in the
level of development that was needed as the product grew. The move permitted
Watchfire to combine best of breed site scanning and analysis technology
with Bobby's accessibility evaluations. This meant that future versions of
Bobby would be based on Watchfire's codebase and have significant
improvements. Watchfire has been testing websites for over 7 years. In the
transition Watchfire has taken on considerable design and development effort
to ensure that the new product would contain the existing features of Bobby
while providing important new features. Only a couple features that existed
in earlier versions of Bobby have been removed; this was done for specific
reasons necessitated by the change in platform. Many of you on this board
know how committed I have been to this cause and understand that I would not
be involved with Watchfire if I felt they were going to be deceitful to our
users.

Most customers view the new Bobby 5.0 as a considerable upgrade, but of
course a few customers relied on removed features and were disappointed to
see them missing. We always appreciate ideas for improvement. It was not our
intent to mislead customers about this and we have taken steps to increase
the clarity of our information about the upgrade. Watchfire has many
accessibility products available to all sizes of organizations and solutions
for consultants who wish to utilize our products for their business. If you
have experienced any issues with the Bobby 5.0 upgrade or would like to
discuss consultant partnership opportunities, please contact
sales@watchfire.com who will work with you to resolve the problem.

Michael

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gian.sampsonwild@families.qld.gov.au
> [mailto:gian.sampsonwild@families.qld.gov.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 12:32 AM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Bobby turning corporate
> 
> 
> 
> I have found this problem with Bobby as well.
> Gian
> 
> ------- Forwarded message follows -------
> Date sent:          Mon, 28 Apr 2003 16:08:17 -0700 (PDT)
> Send reply to:      e-wigg@evanston.lib.il.us
> From:               Edward Wigg <e-wigg@evanston.lib.il.us>
> To:                 Multiple recipients of list
> <web4lib@sunsite.berkeley.edu>
> Subject:            [WEB4LIB] Desktop Bobby licensing
> 
> As I know there are quite a lot of people out there who use Bobby this
> might be of interest, though I'm not sure how many of you use the
> desktop version rather than just the web based tool.
> 
> I came across a story that claims there is a significant change in the
> functionality between version 4 and the new version 5 (specifically
> you can no longer save site reports as html, making such reports
> unsharable except to people with their own licensed copy of the
> program). The sneaky part is that there is apparently nothing that
> tells you about this change except wording hidden in the click-through
> EULA seen during install. It appears that the chances of your getting
> your money back if you don't like this undisclosed change are not
> good. Read  the details of one person's experience at:
> <http://www.jasonlefkowitz.net/blog1archive/000292.html>
> 
> This kind of behavior probably confirms the misgivings that I know
> that some people had when CAST sold Bobby to Watchfire, and it also
> is
> another example of why making bad EULAs strictly enforceable (as is
> the case in UCTIA states) is problematical.
> 
> Edward
> 
> 
> 
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Received on Wednesday, 30 April 2003 11:58:08 UTC