This is a true statement, Marc, and thank you for your public acknowledgment. I am certain that most of the folks you speak of, me the first, would immensely appreciate openness from Trimble regarding the roadmaps of SketchUp and LayOut, and corporate direction to the extent that it could impact the livelihoods, as you justly observed, of the many who depend on the products.
All the speculation we are reading here is due to Trimble’s radio silence. Nature abhors vacuum, and folks are understandably curious / concerned / hopeful about what the future holds for a product that is such a significant part of their professional lives.
Oh but wait, @DaveR is schooling us in the arcane ways of the Security and Exchanges Commission
Well, we stand corrected! Trimble does want to share all that stuff with us, it’s just that guvment won’t let it! That’s also why Amazon had to keep its HQ2 search such a closely guarded secret. And GM has been discussing the next iteration of the Corvette with every car mag in the creation for the past 5 years, but that’s OK because GM is a sole proprietorship so it does not have stock.
Seriously, SEC restrictions on corporate speech exist but they are narrow and specific and would never prevent a publicly traded company from sharing product roadmaps with its customers under most circumstances if it wished to do so. If it wished to do so. If you are interested please google “quiet period”.
What @DaveR said is 100% correct. Trimble employees are not allowed to share roadmaps or even discuss upcoming releases. As Dave said, this is not something new, but information that has been shared repeatedly on the forum.
It’s not that we don’t WANT to share information with you, the fact is, if we did, we could lose our jobs.
I can’t speak to the exact restrictions on announcing release schedules and roadmaps - that’s definitely above my paygrade - but I have to do my best to follow the rules as they’ve been explained to me.
Speaking as a software developer, I can say that we do our best to provide consistency but release schedules are slippery beasts
@TheOnlyAaron There is no doubt that it is indeed the case, and it sure looks that way from our standpoint outside the company. However, @DaveR blames it on Trimble being a publicly traded company, a claim which, like so much these days, is false and devoid of any basis in fact. Trimble’s silence is due to internal policy, nothing else. It is in no way obligated to it as a result of its publicly traded status.
Well… @DaveR is just repeating what I myself and many other Trimble employees have said. Due to the fact that Trimble is publicly traded, we, the employees of Trimble, will not publicly discuss these sorts of things. Whether that limitation comes down due to government restrictions or internal policy, the fact is that this is the position we are in.
You’re bringing up the SEC. I never did or implied that the SEC had anything to do with this. Please don’t twist my words to say something I didn’t say.
you are both making a clear and unequivocal assertion that Trimble’s employees’ behavior in this matter is a direct result of Trimble’s publicly traded status. The SEC being the authority having jurisdiction over publicly traded entities, any such gag order would be dictated by SEC statutes. That’s IF you assert that you cannot speak freely because Trimble is publicly traded - which you both did. There’s no twisting words here, sorry. It’s plain old English.
I don’t know how I allowed myself to get pulled into this rathole. Maybe I am triggered by what the public discourse has become.
Going back to topic, there is a constructive conversation to be had around Trimble’s openness to its customers, or lack thereof for that matter. To the extent that thousands of folks invested millions of hours into mastering a product that has become an integral part of how they make their living, for them - us - to want some visibility into where the product they love is going does not seem entirely unreasonable? More transparency on Trimble’s part would also shut down speculation as to what lies behind the curve, always rampant on this forum - and seldom favorable to Trimble, by the way.
I for one am perplexed as to what value Trimble sees in keeping its customers in the dark. It is fair to ask how much goodwill is lost as a result.
I’ve been developing my plugins full time since April of this year so, yes, I am very dependent on SU for my livelihood. If SketchUp goes down, I will go down with the ship.
But I have full confidence that SketchUp has a bright future ahead, otherwise I would not have put myself in this situation. I think there is way too much speculation and lack of faith on the boards. Why does it even matter if the release of 2019 slips a few months, I really don’t get all of the fuss.
Thank you novurba for clearly expressing the reasons in asking for improved communication between customer & corporation … It’s an appeal to Trimble’s executive management and core values of “customers & their needs - transparency & teamwork - and long term vision”.
It’s a request to know something about how & where SU is going as opposed to nothing (as in, more than we hear & less than you might want to say) … best wishes for 2019
As one of the less successful people, I cannot afford a Pro licence (yet ). Perhaps I should say “disastrously unsuccessful” . Anyway, Trimble have done me proud over the years. I seem to remember the phrase “SketchUp is free and always will be!” some long time ago, along with, er, “Don’t be evil”. While other software appears and disappears, turns into subscriptions or clouds, Trimble kept the faith. Sure I’d love the extra toys and Layout, but SketchUp Make today is certainly a better beast than ever it was in Goolag’s time.
If they pulled the plug on me, I’d be mildly devastated, but all good things come to an end when the choices run out. If and when that happens, I cannot but be grateful to the people at Trimble, from top to bottom, for both their skill and decency over many a long year that my dream has lived on.
Trimble rock, as do the patient Pro users without whom none of us would be in business.
That was actually a Google moto/policy - although rumor has it that this policy stance is gradually being erased, possibly to avoid spurious litigation.
IMHO: Google’s ownership period was a crime against the @last software SU I first used…
they bought it because it worked with Google Earth, and they thought by giving it away, ‘we’ would all populate GE with free models that they could use to collect data and sell on…
They severely neglected the Pro customers, and allowed ‘free’ users to compete ‘commercially’, for their entire regime…
). Perhaps I should say “disastrously unsuccessful” 
. Anyway, Trimble have done me proud over the years. I seem to remember the phrase “SketchUp is free and always will be!” some long time ago, along with, er, “Don’t be evil”. While other software appears and disappears, turns into subscriptions or clouds, Trimble kept the faith. Sure I’d love the extra toys and Layout, but SketchUp Make today is certainly a better beast than ever it was in Goolag’s time.
