This little tweet just came flowing down the stream like a leaf on a lazy river; it is from Michael at EventGenuity about a product he purchased, the APEX Toolbox by Office Ready.
The name Office Ready seems like a joke after reading the tweet.
A post like this can wreck your event, conference, or association’s App, Software, or other tech launch in a matter of minutes, and the damage may not be able to be undone.
First, if you design anything that is supposed to work with Microsoft Office, don’t be lazy; make it compatible with all versions. I use Office 2007 on this machine and 2010 on another, so you have to speak to both of them, or I will not use your stuff. PERIOD.
This is a common mistake, and I see it all the time.
The moral is this: not every meeting and event professional uses the same software; you have to speak to them all. Not everyone uses the same operating system; some are PCs, some are Macs, and some even use Linux.
Before you have a launch, before you try and sell something to meeting and event planners, you had better cover your ass and make sure the freaking thing works or you will get frustrated tweets, blog posts like this and old fashioned word of mouth doing damage that you have to control (and they should start controlling this now).
I won’t get this product (not that I would) because it appears, from a reputable source, that it won’t work out of the box.
I would not buy a car that won’t start; why would I spend money on software that doesn’t work?
