Greg Reinacker – founder and CTO of NewsGator – posted NewsGator’s near term product road map today. The gang at NewsGator has been heads down cranking on a number of fronts – I’ve been encouraging Greg and crew to be more open about what’s coming next. Greg historically has been very tight lipped – by his own admission – so we had some interesting (and useful) conversations about this.
While I’m not a proponent of vaporware or FUD, I do believe it’s useful for young companies to be open about what they are working on. Customer and partner feedback is hugely valuable as you are developing a new set of software products and it’s easy to get the word out there (e.g. via blogs) and get feedback (e.g. via comments, emails, and cross posts). In today’s fast moving world of software and short release cycles, I think a clearly articulated product vision, early beta programs, and lots of forums for feedback helps dramatically improve software product quality and value over the long term.