Hi:
My name is Charlie and I am a user experience designer. I think that Fences is a really great tool with a huge amount of potential.
I came on the forum today because when I booted this morning, I got a dialog box telling me that since this was a beta and going to expire on November 1st it would henceforth be running in reduced mode. I came to this site and encountered this whole messy discussion.
As the CEO of a small consulting company, I would like to offer these comments to Stardock:
1. This product meets a real need for people who are knowledge workers and use their desktop to manage all the projects. Mine gets really cluttered with the files for the projects I am working on.
2. I believe that there is a great deal of potential to extend the functionality of this project for the professional/corporate audience. I think it can generate a lot of revenue.
3. Of course you can do what you want but it seems silly to alienate a potentially large market.
4. I never play games. I use my computer as a work tool.
5. I really like .NET products because I don't have to install them and I don't worry they will mess up my registry.
6. I hope that you will be able to provide this product in a way that is simple to keep updated. I don't mind if you want to show me ads for your other products -- in fact I would welcome them -- but only for those products are relevant to my work. I will never play games on this computer and don't want it cluttered.
7. I am still mystified why the beta reports that it will go into reduced mode. This is September, not November. I don;t have a lot of time to spend investigating the issue.
8. If I am forced to download and install what seemed to be a massive games-oriented tool, I will probably -- with great regret -- abandon Fences. I hope that you will rethink how you can serve the professional/corporate market. This is a well-designed and really useful tool.
Best,
Charlie Kreitzberg
CEO
Cognetics Corporation