The Greatest Idea Moves Closer to Fruition

By Jake • March 25th, 2008 • View Comments

maclogo.jpgI haven’t done post on the most popular ideas on Mix since November. Back then, they were:

1. We need the Oracle clients (OCI, JDBC) for the Apple Intel OSX platform
2. Compile Oracle XE for Intel OS X

Well, guess what? Since November, the same two ideas have stayed at 1 and 2. If you’re interested, rounding out the top five are:

3. Oracle Mix needs an RSS feed
4. Release Instant Client for Mac Intel
5. When I invite my friends to Oracle MIX they should be added to my Network

The theme here is Ruby developers heart Macs. We did our part, and Number 3 and Number 5 have been fixed in Mix over the last few months. Aside from votes, the comments for these ideas showed how popular they really are among Mix members. Numbers 1, 2 and 4 have 35, 35 and 17 comments respectively.

Early on, Kuassi Mensah commented on the top idea, i.e. “We need the Oracle clients (OCI, JDBC) for the Apple Intel OSX platform”, that product development was hoping to release the OCI and JDBC-OCI drivers during the first quarter of 2008.

As that date draws closer, you can tell from comments that people were restless. Last night, Kuassi posted an update, stating that the drivers are delayed by a couple weeks, but that he can provide early access for folks who cannot wait until April.

A few things to note here:

It may be a bit premature to called this idea implemented, since the drivers are not yet GA. However, Kuassi deserves credit for opening an informal beta program and answering the community’s demands.

As Mix grows and more product teams use it to poll their users, I hope to have more implemented success stories.

What do you think about Mix as a way to determine what to build? What about these Mac drivers? Sound off in comments.


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  • Jake
    @Bruce: Never fear, this is on my pet project list, so it'll get there eventually, votes or not. I hope.
  • Cool-ioness. I've voted for it. Maybe if we get enough people voting for it, we can move it to the Implemented tab. ;-)
  • Jake
    @Bruce: I've brought this up a few times, but bugs and other projects have passed it in the queue. AppsLab has only 2 developers, so we rely on other teams who want to use Mix for budget to get consultancies like ThoughtWorks involved. This means they have their own agendas as well.

    I've added this as an idea for giggles to see how much support it has, and I'll see if I can get it done.
  • You NEED to add an "implemented" tab (or "done" or "fixed" or whatever) to Mix. Not just because it's a nice housekeeping thing, but because it SELLS Mix to both the user community and the Oracle management.

    It's one thing to point to a cool new tool and say "see, this is pretty neat, and people love it!", but it's quite another to say "look, as a result of Mix ideas, the following suggestions have been implemented and addressed". Both sides of the coin will love hearing stuff like that. It cements Mix as a productive and helpful tool that actually can affect change.

    Put it back at the top of the list!

    thanks,
    bruce
  • Justin Kestelyn
    To be fair, proponents of this idea have been clamoring for it via Oracle Discussion Forums for at least a year (with Kuassi's and my participation). So although Mix was a big help, I'd argue that the community has had a voice on this issue for a long while.
  • Jake
    @Tim: Good point, the case w/Macs is a bit of an anomaly because I think Kuassi has heard these comments over and over for quite some time.

    In general, you could make a case that SIGs and councils represent a passionate minority of customers that Mix actually helps to balance by giving more people a voice.

    In the end, it's up to product management to make the release scope decisions based on all the input. Mix just adds another channel for I/O.

    @Dan: Believe it or not, there's already an idea out there for implemented ideas. We talked about adding a tab for them, but it's slipped way down the list. We don't have that many non-Mix ideas implemented, but I hope that changes, pushing the implemented ideas idea back up the list.
  • BTW, it's totally awesome that PMs (or at least some PMs) are participating in the community and responding directly to lots of users instead of the few they could touch pre-Mix. Go Mix Go!
  • Seems like there should be some sort of big sledgehammer or checkmark or some such icon indicating which ideas have been implemented and are essentially "off the list". Guess it's time to submit a Mix Idea about ideas :). Maybe even another tab for ideas that were put into service or some such thing.
  • Hi.

    I think it's great how Mix has given customers another way to voice their opinions.

    What worries me is most folks don't get involved, so there is a danger that passionate minority opinions are affecting the road map for the majority.

    I guess this is just like politics, so if people don't like it they've got to get involved. :)

    Cheers

    Tim...

    PS. This comment is not aimed at Apple, so don't flame me. :)
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