Paul Gallen
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Rank 1
Rank 1
Paul Gallen
asked on 19 Mar 2009, 08:31 AM
Hi,
Before I begin there are some great things about Telerik, one is there support, second to none. Their web controls, fantastic. However one of my main worry is that Telerik never completes their documentation and some of there controls are very buggy. Not that this is so bad in its self, (as devs, we are all up against time). If you take a look at telerik they offer above and beyond UI controls:-Reporting, ORM, Test Studio. Is Telerik becoming a 'Jack of all Trades'. Is Telerik becoming diluted! To the point:- I wish Telerik would concentrate in finishing what they have started instead of bringing out new products.
I am a supporter of Telerik, please do not take offence, its just an observation
All the best
P
Before I begin there are some great things about Telerik, one is there support, second to none. Their web controls, fantastic. However one of my main worry is that Telerik never completes their documentation and some of there controls are very buggy. Not that this is so bad in its self, (as devs, we are all up against time). If you take a look at telerik they offer above and beyond UI controls:-Reporting, ORM, Test Studio. Is Telerik becoming a 'Jack of all Trades'. Is Telerik becoming diluted! To the point:- I wish Telerik would concentrate in finishing what they have started instead of bringing out new products.
I am a supporter of Telerik, please do not take offence, its just an observation
All the best
P
1 Answer, 1 is accepted
0
Hi Paul,
"Are we spreading too thin?" - that is the question we have been asking ourselves ever since we decided to work on RadGrid for ASP.NET and make a very comprehensive ASP.NET UI component set rather than staying a niche vendor of the best ASP.NET HTML editor.
This question has popped up again every time we've ventured on something new - ASP.NET AJAX, Windows Forms, Reporting, WPF, Silverlight, ORM, testing... And we've always done what's necessary to ensure that our capability to deliver and the Telerik quality is not compromised. We've hired new people (our team has grown more or less proportionately to our product portfolio), we've made acquisitions, we've transferred people around, we have bleeded here and there but we never allowed quantity to be at the expense of quality. If you look at the latest Q1 release, you will see that we've added a lot of substance across all product lines and that's the best indication that we are not letting anything slip and we are investing heavily in all product lines. We are firm believers in the Jack Welch principle - if our products can't make it to the #1 or #2 spot in their respective category, there's no use making them.
That said, it's not that easy to get things right immediately. We do work with constraints. And we do work with new technologies (sometimes they are new for us because we have not been addressing the space). This affects the ride of customers and sometimes it's bumpy in the beginning. If you look at our Windows Forms and Reporting products from a few years ago, you'd see the same issues you are seeing in Silverlight and WPF. Today they are stable, very feature-rich, well-performing and with solid documentation. We have done a lot to address missing features, to fix bugs, to provide tons of documentation (help, KBs, training videos, hundreds of pages of step by step tutorials, etc) and to improve the customer experience. And those products will continue to get tangibly better and better with every release.
Speaking of Silverlight and WPF, we are aware that there are issues to be addressed - bugs, missing documentation, bad examples, improper or non-existent APIs, things that are not 100% convenient for customers, and more. We know that documentation is not what it should be and we will address it. The reason why we have not done so already is that we've been working with platforms that are work-in-progress (especially Silverlight) and our products are changing rapidly along with the platform. Investing lots of effort into documentation when you don't have a solid base would just end up in docs that are irrelevant a week after they are written. Our focus is to get the products right first and making the best use of the platform features and then investing a solid effort in documentation. That said, I think you will find a tangible difference in the quality of the documentation in the coming Q2 release. As with everything else, it just takes time to get everything perfect and it takes priorities.
The same applies for missing features, missing components and bugs - we are taking into account your feedback and doing something about it. I hope that Q2 will provide definitive proof that we are not standing still and are addressing the pain points of customers:)
So, as an ending, an answer to your question where are we going - we are going to the top spots for all product lines or we are going home:)
Greetings,
Vassil Terziev
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.
"Are we spreading too thin?" - that is the question we have been asking ourselves ever since we decided to work on RadGrid for ASP.NET and make a very comprehensive ASP.NET UI component set rather than staying a niche vendor of the best ASP.NET HTML editor.
This question has popped up again every time we've ventured on something new - ASP.NET AJAX, Windows Forms, Reporting, WPF, Silverlight, ORM, testing... And we've always done what's necessary to ensure that our capability to deliver and the Telerik quality is not compromised. We've hired new people (our team has grown more or less proportionately to our product portfolio), we've made acquisitions, we've transferred people around, we have bleeded here and there but we never allowed quantity to be at the expense of quality. If you look at the latest Q1 release, you will see that we've added a lot of substance across all product lines and that's the best indication that we are not letting anything slip and we are investing heavily in all product lines. We are firm believers in the Jack Welch principle - if our products can't make it to the #1 or #2 spot in their respective category, there's no use making them.
That said, it's not that easy to get things right immediately. We do work with constraints. And we do work with new technologies (sometimes they are new for us because we have not been addressing the space). This affects the ride of customers and sometimes it's bumpy in the beginning. If you look at our Windows Forms and Reporting products from a few years ago, you'd see the same issues you are seeing in Silverlight and WPF. Today they are stable, very feature-rich, well-performing and with solid documentation. We have done a lot to address missing features, to fix bugs, to provide tons of documentation (help, KBs, training videos, hundreds of pages of step by step tutorials, etc) and to improve the customer experience. And those products will continue to get tangibly better and better with every release.
Speaking of Silverlight and WPF, we are aware that there are issues to be addressed - bugs, missing documentation, bad examples, improper or non-existent APIs, things that are not 100% convenient for customers, and more. We know that documentation is not what it should be and we will address it. The reason why we have not done so already is that we've been working with platforms that are work-in-progress (especially Silverlight) and our products are changing rapidly along with the platform. Investing lots of effort into documentation when you don't have a solid base would just end up in docs that are irrelevant a week after they are written. Our focus is to get the products right first and making the best use of the platform features and then investing a solid effort in documentation. That said, I think you will find a tangible difference in the quality of the documentation in the coming Q2 release. As with everything else, it just takes time to get everything perfect and it takes priorities.
The same applies for missing features, missing components and bugs - we are taking into account your feedback and doing something about it. I hope that Q2 will provide definitive proof that we are not standing still and are addressing the pain points of customers:)
So, as an ending, an answer to your question where are we going - we are going to the top spots for all product lines or we are going home:)
Greetings,
Vassil Terziev
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Check out the tips for optimizing your support resource searches.