I raised the question because my download of NWP 141 is dated May 
2009. In a couple of months, that will be two years -- and not even a 
point upgrade since. In the software world, that is next to dead.

I'm not dissatisfied with NWP -- I use it daily and I like it. I'm 
not a mad upgrader either -- heavens, my email client is Eudora 
6.2.4, my graphics/dtp program -- which contributes significantly  to 
my livelihood -- is Canvas X which ACD stopped developing about 5 
years ago and stopped selling and supporting two or three years ago, 
and my contact/calendar program is Chronos's Personal Organizer 4.5 
(because their SOHO Organizer is rubbish -- but I'm about to switch 
to Contactizer, I think., after years of waiting for SOHO to come 
good!).

The reason I raised the question is because there are things about 
NWP 1.4.1 which are simply unfinished and should have been fixed ages 
ago.

Apart from the vertical rulers, which Nisus *invented* for WPs, there 
are the tables which really need some improvement and have needed it 
since they came out. I've done some good stuff with them, but they 
suffer (at the simplest level) from the user being unable to nail 
them to the page and unable to set styles for cells. There is the 
outlining capability -- almost there but not quite; it needs tweaks 
to make NWP a brilliant report writer. The import and placement of 
graphics and pix is very basic, and there is the inability to caption 
illustrations. At a very basic level, there are the wandering page 
margins which people have talked about since Express, but which have 
never been nailed down, and the odd measurements for the placement of 
margins, tabs., etc.

These things re not way out or specialist, I would have thought, in 
fact my view of them is just the opposite. I would have thought they 
were right at the core of demand in NWP's chosen market(s).

When I was exploring NWP v.1.4.1 and being accepting (if not entirely 
happy about) moderate progress, I was thinking that these things -- 
not such great things, I should have thought -- would be dealt with 
in a v.2 in about a year. Obviously, that hasn't happened. And now 
it's about two years.

So the fact is, I am getting nervous. I know I wouldn't want to be 
trying to sell a two year old piece of software -- in computer terms 
that's a whole generation old. Further, "v.1.4.1" spells "unsorted 
newbie" in the computer world; v.2 is not much better -- from a 
marketing PoV, there is a need to get to v.3 as speedily as possible, 
I would suggest.

I've already watched Eudora, Canvas and Personal Organizer (and a 
whole bunch of other programs) move into long periods between 
upgrades, then finally disappear out the back door. I'm one of a 
dwindling number of people still using them. I don't want to add NWP 
to that list.

It is all very well for Martin, on behalf of Nisus, to say they "have 
a policy", but my question then is "what for?" Does secrecy actually 
help them? Are they afraid that a competitor will rush in and steal 
their ground? Is that  a realistic fear? But with nearly two years 
gone, it's natural, surely, for those not in the know to wonder 
whether the policy is there to protect stunning developments from 
prying eyes -- or to conceal the king's naked state.

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
Business writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press