Mindmanager for Mac is a joke
I have been using mindmaps for quite some time. Wherever I go I am known as the mindmap person. My whole website was build using MindManager’s export-to-HTML function. But those where the times of Windows. Now I have moved to Mac and I have left behind MindManager. Now I use Freemind, and iMindMap.
I recently expressed my choise pubblicly on a twitter:
@gtdguy with all respect mindmanager sucks on mac. There I use freemind (4 speed) and imindmap (4 beauty). But neither makes HTML maps good!
I was then contacted by Michael Deutch (“Mindjet Chief Evangelist”), who asked me:
@pietrosperoni Buon giorno Pietro. What features / capabilities are you looking for in MindManager Mac? Thanks for sharing
The answer was too long for a tweet, so instead I decided to blog it, and tweet a link to it.
Dear Michael, thank you for your question.
I was undeniably in a great desire to share what I think about the way mindjet was treating Mac.
I use to use Minmanager many years ago, when I had Mindmanager 2002. Now Mindmanager for Windows runs version 8, Mindmanager for Mac runs version 7, and version 7 for Mac is sensibly worse than version 2002 for windows, from 6 years ago. As you can imagine I am pretty pissed off, and you might have to make a huge work to evangelize me.
Nowhere is the discussion about Mindjet product for Mac more focused than on the Mindjet Forums themselves. So please let us go there. In particular in the MindManager 7 for Mac. And to really pinpoint the issue, I would like you to read the Board: Is Mindjet really serious about the Mac?. It is 45 posts, 16 months long, so far, and is the one place where we frustrated mindmanager users, who were used to have a Windows version vent our anger.
Please read it, I’ll wait. (By the way, the authors “psdf” is me)
The shortest answer to your question is that we need MindManager for Mac to be as good as the Windows version for us to take it seriously.
We need the same functionalities as windows, and we need them at about the same time. A few weeks later is acceptable. Few months is bad, and years after is enough for us not to use your software. But not to implement them, is unacceptable for us to even considering hearing someone speak good about mindmanager without feeling an incredible urge to chip in our experience. Especially from a company that pretends to be Mac friendly.
I personally need to be able to upload my old .mm files, from mindmamager 2002. I need to have an export to html with embedded in the image links as there is in all other versions of mindmanager. I am particularly angry with Mindjet because that functionality, the possibility to have links embedded in the map, is only present from mindjet products. This makes me suspects that you might have patented this functionality, effectively denying any Mac user from being able to have it. I will actually have to restructure my whole website because of this. And this because I refuse to run a Windows system just for a program.
I have deleted MindManager 7 for Mac long time ago so it is now too late for me to make a side by side comparison. Plus I don’t have a Windows computer with a MindManager program running inside. But please, I plead you, you are in Mindjet headquarters, take a laptop with a Windows MindManager 8 on the one side, another with a Mac MindManager 7 on the other and run them side by side. And then, in all honestly, tell me if you are not disgusted by the Mac version. It is a stub. Now run it against MindManager 7 for Windows and see if you do not feel the same way. Run it against MindManager 2002 (I am sure you must still have a copy somwhere), and tell me if you don’t still feel the same way. Run it against freemind. Run it against any other mindmap program for Mac and tell me if you do not feel just the same way: Mindmanager for Mac is a joke!.
On top of all this, it was mindnumbing to see how bad were Mac users being treated on your own website, with mindjet ignoring Mac users requests, pleads, protests; Mindjet employers do not post in the Mindjet Mac forum anymore. Worse than that, if Mac users share with other users outside their forum what is going on they get deleted:
Hi All,
Well, I actually posted on the PC MM7 forum about the poor service that Mindjet have given the MAC community and how in a world of migration from PC to MAC that this is a bad thing for IT managers. It got deleted. Perhaps by posting here I am risking being banned from the the forum altogether but I wanted people to know that things are not all well at Mindjet (I own 3 mindjet licenses + JV Gannt etc) . However, I encourage you to do the same and not lie down and take the fact that Mindjet have taken your money and ran. Perhaps this mail will be deleted before anyone sees it. Poor, disrespectful service to a long time customer.
We are now using that forum to share tips about competing softwares. What else can we do?
We tried to mail for support, and the answer we got were:
Thank you for your interest in MindManager. At this time, we do not have an exact date in place for an upgrade for Mac users. Please check our website http://www.mindjet.com for updates.
Best regards,
Susan
and
Sent: Saturday , August 30, 2008 05:21 am PDT (GMT-07:00)
Subject: What about the new MAC version?Do you have a general date? Like 4th Quarter 08?? I won’t hold you to it.
September 3, 2008 11:08:19 AM EDT
Update for Case #59656 – “What about the new MAC version?”Unfortunately, we do not.
Best regards,
SusanSusan Kozak
Customer Service Representative
Mindmanager is being too well treated from Apple. In Apple shops MindManager for Mac is being sold and presented in nice views on stands. That’s where I bought mine, that’s where I brought it back (with my feedbacks) the next day. Eventually we are going to get your products out of Apple stores. It just does not belong there.
Now, the number of Mac users is growing. I come from academia, and I can assure you that almost everybody there is using Mac.
Can Mindjet really afford to have this growing black hole of disaffectionate users grow and erode your base?
I don’t think so.
Best Regards,
Pietro
Pietro Speroni
Ex Mindjet costumer, Ex MindManager user.
P.S. if by any chance the pages in the mindjet forum got deleted (you know, thos damn hackers are everywhere), just mail me, and I will send you a copy of them.
ADDENDUM:
Michael’s Reply:
@pietrosperoni Thanks, will share your feedback with our team! Lots of win users migrated to mac last year!
No related posts.
Pietro,
First, thanks for your Twitter reply.
It’s unfortunate that it has come to this and Mindjet is indeed to blame for some of your frustration. Mindjet could have been more proactive or clearer in our forums and communications.
Here’s a little background regarding your post:
MindManager for Windows has had over 15 years of development put into it while the Mac version was first released in 2006. In mid-2007 we released the second version of MindManager Mac. At the time of release, as you stated, MindManager Mac did not offer the same functionality as MindManager 7. That is one of the reasons why the Mac product is priced significantly lower than MindManager 8.
We also probably set unrealistic expectation for users like yourself (people who used MindManager on Windows and moved to Mac) when we called our second Mac release MindManager 7 Mac. This implied functional parity with our Windows product which was an unintended consequence of that naming decision.
We’ve received many compliments from the Mac community on MindManager 7 Mac. It offers a nice general mapping experience and has been praised by many users new to mapping. More advanced and ex-Windows users have been requesting enhancements to bring it up to the same level as MindManager 7 and 8.
As a small but growing software company, we’ve had to make some tough development choices based on our resources, available technologies, the economy, etc… However, our organization is continuing to support and grow our Mac offering. The recent surge of growth in the Mac platform is exciting and has not gone unnoticed at Mindjet. In fact, our CEO, VP of Products and head of product management all use the Mac so they’re likely to understand your concerns firsthand. Again, I’m happy to share that we’ll continue to support and develop upgrades to our Mac release and welcome your input and concerns.
Regarding the deleted account in our forum, I do not have visibility into the details about this yet but will personally follow-up with our customer support team about this raised issue.
If you’d like to contact me directly, I’d be more than happy to discuss this further.
Thanks again, Michael
Michael,
thanks for your reply.
I am happy to hear that some of your top managers are Mac users. They indeed will be able to understand better the problem. Maybe we could invite them to the forum so we can hear what they has to say
. Seriously, I think-feel that as a first simple patch you should place is to have someone devote enough attention to the forum to avoid misunderstanding from appearing. It should be a mac user, and should answer to queries immediately, within 24-hours. It just should not be allowed for the situation to drain itself to the point where we feel left to ourselves, speaking bad about mindjet… in your own house. Who was responsible for letting the situation in your official forum reach this state?
By the way, I am sure we agree this should never be done by deleting anything. I don’t know much about the deleted material, except what I read on that thread. It was not my post that was deleted, and I understand that it was a post, and not a whole account. But I might be wrong. If you want to follow up on this, you need to contact the original author of that comment.
Yes, I fully agree that the naming might have something to do with the situation you describe, but honestly I think the quality of this mindjet product is way too low, at this stage, to put the blame only on the name. My feeling is that such a product should have been called pre-alpha, and given for free (ok, 10$). Really, I know nothing of mindmanager 7 or 8. I am a mindmanager 2002 user, and the product was a let down for me.
The only thing I remember that I thought was neat, and only your product provided it (we don’t consider here conceptmaps as mindmaps), is the possibility to put a label to a link between branch. I thought if I should have kept the product just for that, and decided that it was not worth the hassle.
I know developing things for different platforms is a hassle, especially if you want to use the special programming shortcuts that are unique for each platform. I use to program in Windows Visual C++. Now I program in Python. Maybe you might need to consider that the age of a single platform domination is over, and you have grown beyond that, and prepare a program in a (non java!!) base that supports different platforms. In fact I think I will make this my official proposal:
Don’t try to catch up, instead prepare a new product, and make the new product in a platform neutral language. And then release it on all platforms at the same time. Use all the experience you have acquired so far, and put it all in this new product, making it better than the windows version.
Michael, one last thing, is my suspect right? Do you guys own the patent on having “a direct link in an html mindmap”? Patents are public, so I think you can tell me, but it is a bit of a hassle for me to look directly. If you are, can you find an agreement with other mindmanager houses? I’ll make this an ethical request: we need this.
If you’d like to contact me directly, I’d be more than happy to discuss this further.
Thanks. I think for now we should keep this public, as other people are probably curious too.
Regards,
Pietro
You’re right, next stop has to be the forum. Btw, I disagree with your perspective on ethics. But that’s a longer discussion which I don’t have the time at the moment to engage. To answer your plea, we haven’t tried to stop the development of mapping technology through the assertion of patents. Thanks.
Thanks for the reply.
>I disagree with your perspective on ethics
How very interesting. When you have the time, maybe on twitter or in any other informal setting, we should discuss this.
>we haven’t tried to stop the development of mapping technology through the assertion of patents.
Thank you very much for clarifying this.
Best Regard,
Pietro