Suggestion to Acronis

Acronis!!

Here are the suggestions of a very disgruntled (i.e., normal) customer.

Give everyone with 2011 a license to 2010 and a cleanup tool to eliminate 2011.

Fix 2010 before you issue a new major release that people have to pay for.

Worst case, finish 2010 and make people pay something to receive STABLE dot releases while you fix all of the things that are wrong.

You NEED A STABLE, RELIABLE, BELIEVABLE, TRUSTWORTHY, release. This is software that really only fully exposes its' total inability to meet fitness for purpose when the user is left with a warm steaming pile of broken computer. Although, I have to admit, it certainly leaves some real strong hints along the way. Have you read this forum? If you screw with things that work, get customer testing.

We are putting our computer lives in you hands. Terabyte upon terabyte; millions of dollars and hours of lost information and effort. Our lives dribble out between your widely spaced fingers. Your product simply can not be trusted. You never know if it worked; it does not operate in a rational fashion, your documentation is not comprehensible, your interface would make the Sphinx weep. I have probably spent way more than 50 hours so far just trying to get the damn thing to work as expected. That would be without editing the registry, using other software packages, and dancing widdershins (that is counterclockwise to the non-practitioners), naked, around a ceremonial fire with the sacrifice of a small mammal.

Don't ever again issue a new major release without;

- an extensive alpha and beta process (that means more than three guys who live for Acronis software, cold pizza, and Jolt Cola, or wrote the code)
- broad customer feedback on proposed changes
- making sure your customers are not left hanging when their computer simply can not be restored using your software
- not splitting off essential pieces of your recovery process to an equally incomprehensible add-on (think plus pack)

If you can't make money using this model you need to change jobs. Perhaps designing derivative investment funds or starting a Ponzi scheme. Or door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales.