Folks thoughts about features in roadmap

[prf5]

I looked at the roadmap with a key toward how the developers are positioning their product. A few months ago, I said that UR as "quickly becoming indispensable." That's a mixed blessing, because as I become more dependent on a piece of software I need assurance that it's evolving into something that will continue to have appeal, and more important, that it will be around for the foreseeable future. I, among others, believe that UR has almost unlimited potential. This potential will get reigned in as its purpose comes to be more clearly defined, and the roadmap goes a long way toward providing that definition.

For me, the principal question is: Does the roadmap position UR as a major application or a utility, and if it's a utility, will it be essential or a convenience? The roadmap indicates that UR will lack the power and distinctiveness of a major application. Fundamentally, it's a place to stash information that was generated by other applications and a means of generating snippets and notes that eventually will end up somewhere else or have time-limited value. So, is it essential? The answer would be "yes" if it offered unique capabilities that I will come to rely on. Instead, I see it positioned as a competitor to Onenote and Evernote, but lacking desirable features such as collaboration and handwriting recognition. The data explorer gives UR an edge. However, lacking the ability to create views limits the its capability.

I continue to use UR, but have begun to keep it at a distance and won't allow it to become an essential tool of my work. I expect the other applications to give UR intense competition, particular as they become more mature. The biggest competition, however, will come from advances in search technology, as manifested now in products such as Copernic Desktop Search, Blinkx, and others -- and soon to be integrated into the operating system. These advances may drive UR to the margins. I am hopeful, however, that there is a long-term roadmap that will lead the product in a distinctive and more appealing direction.