[neotechie]

Hi. I'm probably not saying anything that you guys and all your users don't know. And I realize that Natara is a fairly small company and seems to like being that way. But I can't help but think that the best thing for users and the software at this point might be to sell the company, the software, or the developer's services to a much larger company. It's pretty obvious now that you can make money if you have enough developing resources to make versions for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm Pre, Mac OS. And it's also obvious that probably the number one "request" from users for years here now would be that they could get Bonsai on the new mobile device they have now, whether it's an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device. And a Mac and online version possibly too. I know there are headaches to selling and working for a larger company and that this isn't a great time to sell and make a lot of money by selling. But I think 2010 could be a great year for Natara and their users if they could find a way to sell quickly and get their great software on platforms that people use. I think if you want the best thing for the users and to have the software actually used by people anymore that the number one priority now has to be to get it developed for all the popular platforms quickly. And that probably means selling and giving up a bit of control.

One other thing to note is there still isn't really that many outliner programs or even good journaling programs like DayNotez for iPhone or other mobile OSs. If you could sell now and get a first version out in 6-9 months there would still be a lot of people to buy them I think. Oh yeah, and you'd need to start with the iPhone version of course ;)

Here's my story. I love Bonsai. When I found it years ago when I bought my first Palm I loved it right away. And now that I've been using it for so long it's probably my favorite piece of softare ever if you don't count OS's or browsers. I still carry around my Z22 along with my iPod Touch because I just need a good outliner on my mobile device. But I'm on the iPhone OS now like many other users and so at some point I won't be using Bonsai anymore even though there would be nothing better than for me to have Bonsai on my iPod Touch.


Something to think about,
neotechie