Users Want AIM Client for Ubuntu… AOL Says No!
One of the most popular feature requests on AOL’s AIM UserVoice forum was for AIM to have a client available through the Ubuntu Software Center and although this feature request received hundreds more votes than any other feature request it was declined recently by AIM’s Product Manager with the following response:
As you can imagine it is quite a weak and disappointing response considering that AOL has the resources to develop a client for Ubuntu (Linux) if they so chose and even get help if they open sourced it but instead of fulfilling one of the highest voted feature requests they decided to decline.
All in all I think Pidgin does an excellent job as a all-around IM client anyways but when you have demand for a AOL produced client for Linux that exceeds demands for all other features it just seems natural to follow the desires of the masses?
All I can say is Adam and his team have failed at doing the right thing for their users which is giving them what they want.
Many a noble deed has died, even before inception, on the words, "What's the ROI?" The only real criticism I have of AOL regards their failure to recognise what should be open to begin with, top to bottom. That would add value both for AOL and their clients.
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LikeWhy in the world would anyone want a native version of the AIM client for ANY platform, when capable, free, ad-free, multi-service clients like Pidgin and Empathy exist? Are these people masochists who don't feel right unless they're restricted to a single service and force-fed advertising?
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LikeThey want to talk to relatives or friends who use Windows 2000/XP, or only upgraded to XP in the last 3 years because their Windows 98 machine quit working.
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LikeNot sure what users expect;
I'd vote down the request to create an aol client for 'linux' (whatever linux is these days) and instead insist upon full disclosure of their protocols. If that's already happening, then there is no problem and everyone can go home.
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Like> "when you have demand for a AOL produced client for Linux that exceeds demands for all other features it just seems natural to follow the desires of the masses?"
It actually makes no sense for them to create from scratch a new application that they will have to build, maintain, support, distribute,... which will have bugs and will give them bad PR, etc.
They probably don't even have the required skills in-house, so that would be a significant investment.
What puzzles me is why he didn't mention that AIM was already supported on Linux, for example with Pidgin.
This would have made much more sense:
"Sorry, we don't feel it would be a reasonable usage of our resources when there already are some very good AIM clients on Linux. We advise you to use one of the following:
- empathy
- pidgin
Note that these are not officially supported applications, but as usual on Linux, you can be sure to receive help from the community."
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LikeI totally agree that by declining to the said request they failed to provide good service to their users. I also don't find any reasonable excuse because I certainly believe that they have the resources for the development of the software.
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