Evernote strategy?

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

Looking on new features I ask myself question - > What is Evernote strategy?

For me evernote key features are:
-ability to fast search in many ways (all notes, in notebook ect)
-stability
-ergonomic pane (I turn off most of addons)

For calendar and tasks I have Office 365 + some clients use G-SUIT like most companies.
If not MS/Google than for teams planning there is already mature solution -> NOZBE

What the hell is Evernote stratedy with all those taks, widgets, calendar sync ect? 😟

I feel that Evernote is slowly loosing it's unique features up to now (since long time I read that new version will have legacy features being added).
It was the same with BlackBerry, when they left their unique technology and devices with physical keyboard they lost their uniqunes at all and there were gone from the market...
That's why I ask what unique value is Evernote planning to have and develop for it's users.

I would love to pay more for new legacy version with just dark mode added....
Don't need all other garbade like skething, tasks, calendar, bla bla bla...

[Boot17 1,438]

For me some of Evernote key features are:

• Find a note quickly. (I can do this very quickly with the Switch-To command. I love it.)
• Save and keep documents and images and be able to find them. (OCR searching on images and searching in PDFs is awesome.)
• Make notes actionable. Tasks was a great addition for this and I'm glad they are there.
• Dead simple note entry. It's so easy to add data into Evernote compared to more curated personal management systems like Notion.
• Built-in PDF Viewer.
• Ability to attach any kind of document to the note.
• Availability on all major platforms. (I use it on iOS, iPad, Windows, Mac and Web)
• Consistency in UI and UX across all platforms. I think Evernote hit this one out of the park with the new version 10.
• Along with the above point, a clean UI. The Legacy version just didn't look great to me and was too cramped.
• Data integrity. This has worked out very well for me. I lost data (several paragraphs) one time due to (what I thought was) a sync issue, but could have recovered with version history (but I didn't have then)

I find tasks very useful and am glad they are there. I don't use the Web Clipper or email-to-Evernote functionality, but I wouldn't rant against how they are garbage and should be abandoned.

[PinkElephant 8,045]

Whatever you want you need to decide for yourself. If it is legacy plus dark mode, just get yourself a Mac.

Most software does more (often a LOT more) than any single user will apply. How many functions do you use in your Excel sheets ? 40 ? OK, there are 400 functions implemented. Whoah Microsoft, what a waste - do away with the 360 I don’t need ?!

If EN needs a strategy ? May be, but may be not as well. May be it is simply „enough“ when you create value for your users, especially those who are paying the show. But they have a strategy for sure, you just need to look what new ideas were developed and released since the new version hit the world 2 years ago. Home is an offer to build your dashboard, Tasks is an offer to convert „dead“ notes into workflows, calendar integration is an offer to combine content and planning. I don’t care if it is „strategic“, if it adds bang for my bucks.

If it is good enough for your or anybody’s use case, any user decides for himself. But from what I see, it is making us users more productive. My usage is going up, not down. Not because I have nothing else to do, but because it helps me doing what I need to tackle. For me, that’s strategic enough.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

Just now, Boot17 said:

For me some of Evernote key features are:

• Find a note quickly. (I can do this very quickly with the Switch-To command. I love it.)
• Save and keep documents and images and be able to find them. (OCR searching on images and searching in PDFs is awesome.)
• Make notes actionable. Tasks was a great addition for this and I'm glad they are there.
• Dead simple note entry. It's so easy to add data into Evernote compared to more curated personal management systems like Notion.
• Built-in PDF Viewer.
• Ability to attach any kind of document to the note.
• Availability on all major platforms. (I use it on iOS, iPad, Windows, Mac and Web)
• Consistency in UI and UX across all platforms. I think Evernote hit this one out of the park with the new version 10.
• Along with the above point, a clean UI. The Legacy version just didn't look great to me and was too cramped.
• Data integrity. This has worked out very well for me. I lost data one time due to (what I thought was) a sync issue, but could have recovered with version history (but I didn't have.)

I find tasks very useful and am glad they are there. I don't use the Web Clipper, but I wouldn't rant against how it is garbage and should be abandoned.

Ok, I'm aware that there are other users of Evernote who like all new features.
I know.
But do anyone know what is Evernote strategy?

[PinkElephant 8,045]

Again - who needs to know ?

There are comments on their blog post, and they had these „behind the scenes“ videos that showed some of what later became v10. If you want to know, I would propose you go and read the blog first.

Just keep in mind that EN hardly ever talks about new future features. And the last time they had a „strategy“, they ended up opening a store for socks. Sorry, but I can do without that sort of stuff.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Home is an offer to build your dashboard, Tasks is an offer to convert „dead“ notes into workflows, calendar integration is an offer to combine content and planning. I don’t care if it is „strategic“, if it adds bang for my bucks.

This sounds nice, shows some bigger perspective.

PS. I have asked question about strategy. This is not emotional complain post. It's not nice for me to read posts with senteces like "change your computer to mac" or "use other product".

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

6 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Again - who needs to know ?

It's interesting for me as I'm person who is involved in strategies in companies - this is way I think about producs when I make decisions about them.
If it's not interesting for you than why you reply to my post?

[Boot17 1,438]

2 minutes ago, Dominik Kociecki said:

But do anyone know what is Evernote strategy?

There is a lot of information about that out there. Here is one such place: https://evernote.com/blog/ceo-update-january-2022/

> In my last post on the Evernote blog, I said that Evernote’s newest features, like Home, Tasks, and Calendar, “expand the vista of what Evernote can do for you.” Time has proven that statement true. Evernote’s new building blocks convert our newly reinvigorated mission of “remember everything and accomplish anything” into concrete capabilities for our users. At the same time, our reconfigured product lineup—Evernote Free, Evernote Personal, Evernote Professional, and Evernote Teams—build upon that foundation of new productivity features and better reflect how customers use our product.

I posted this in another thread:

> Stuck in a quagmire of legacy tech debt and getting their lunch eaten by new competitors, EN puts all effort into the new v10. It is released and there are is a ton of legacy tech debt to resolve and address... lots of fires to put out. They also wanted to get some big wins with the new version after that -- and for them that was Tasks and Calendar integration. A synchronization overhaul is now also already underway.

Evernote's ship was sinking with the legacy product. It was sink or swim. v10 and the new features is the way they are swimming.

 

[PinkElephant 8,045]

Well, this was just matter of factual. Legacy 7.14 (notice that Windows is 6.25) is 64Bit software (Windows legacy is still 32 bit, that’s why it does not support Windows dark mode), and supports dark mode.

This is only one example of how ruined EN was before they decided to cut all old rope. They even did not have a common code base for Windows and Mac, and needed to code everything twice. They hardly made it every year to get ready when the new OS release wiped the canvas.

In such a situation you don’t need a strategy, you need a chainsaw.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

Just now, Boot17 said:

There is a lot of information about that out there. Here is one such place: https://evernote.com/blog/ceo-update-january-2022/

> In my last post on the Evernote blog, I said that Evernote’s newest features, like Home, Tasks, and Calendar, “expand the vista of what Evernote can do for you.” Time has proven that statement true. Evernote’s new building blocks convert our newly reinvigorated mission of “remember everything and accomplish anything” into concrete capabilities for our users. At the same time, our reconfigured product lineup—Evernote Free, Evernote Personal, Evernote Professional, and Evernote Teams—build upon that foundation of new productivity features and better reflect how customers use our product.

I posted this in another thread:

> Stuck in a quagmire of legacy tech debt and getting their lunch eaten by new competitors, EN puts all effort into the new v10. It is released and there are is a ton of legacy tech debt to resolve and address... lots of fires to put out. They also wanted to get some big wins with the new version after that -- and for them that was Tasks and Calendar integration. A synchronization overhaul is now also already underway.

Evernote's ship was sinking with the legacy product. It was sink or swim. v10 and the new features is the way they are swimming.

 

Thx for link.
Yes, I seen all videos with Evernote CEO when there was new versions pushed out.
It's not nice for me but I understand why they did all this.

BUT I'm still interested in strategy
If there is not, than ok.
Just asking.
No hard emotions or judgment.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Well, this was just matter of factual. Legacy 7.14 (notice that Windows is 6.25) is 64Bit software (Windows legacy is still 32 bit, that’s why it does not support Windows dark mode), and supports dark mode.

This is only one example of how ruined EN was before they decided to cut all old rope. They even did not have a common code base for Windows and Mac, and needed to code everything twice. They hardly made it every year to get ready when the new OS release wiped the canvas.

In such a situation you don’t need a strategy, you need a chainsaw.

Yes, I agree that there was logic in move they did. Don't like new versions, but there was logic in this decision and good they have recorded those movies with CEO.
But it's past.
My question is about now + future.
Reading your replies it seems to me there is nowhere anything about strategy and they don't like to share anything about where they want to go.
It's ok if they do like that. But wanted to ask - maybe somebody knows something what I don't.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

6 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Well, this was just matter of factual. Legacy 7.14 (notice that Windows is 6.25) is 64Bit software (Windows legacy is still 32 bit, that’s why it does not support Windows dark mode), and supports dark mode.

Nice! Didn't knew about this! 👍🏼

[PinkElephant 8,045]

We had threads here in the forum about it, when users were asking for dark mode for PC. Didn’t work, because Windows only supports it for 64Bit apps.

That on the Mac EN lifted it to 64Bit did have a reason as well. Windows is religious about backward compatibility. Apple is not: They started several years ago to tell everybody that they will remove 32bit support from MacOS, giving devs 2 years to move their apps from 32 to 64Bit. If EN would have not done it, it would have killed them on the Mac, because 2 years later Apple really turned the switch, disabling every 32bit software.

I was hit by this decision myself, because Fujitsu had only brought the „Home“ ScanSnap scanning software to 64Bit. The more professional ScanSnap Manager software was left out in the dust. So I needed to switch, otherwise my ix500 would have been bricked. Talking strategy: 9 month later Fujitsu surprised anybody, by proudly releasing the first 64Bit version of ScanSnap Manager again. But it took them nearly 1.5 years until they had it back to where it was before. So first they had no (communicated) strategy, and then it boils down to „execution beats strategy for breakfast“. 

Part of what is the new EN strategy ist that they are employing agile project management, with very short cycles of releasing new versions. This means that they have a new slot every 3 weeks, to follow or to modify strategic implementation. So maybe strategy is not that central any more compared to before. If the ditched one of these major releases of legacy, they hardly got a second chance for a full year or so, ‚til the next release.

Now they may decide to bump one item up on the backlog, and move another further down. Probably the strategy is to be able to do this - less so which content is in the end bumped up or down. Just my view form the outside, not inside knowledge.

[Dominik Kociecki 4]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

So maybe strategy is not that central any more compared to before.

This might be part of strategy

The strategy may be to follow what the users need