Evernote's "exciting news"

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

I wouldn't mind a little more communication from EverSpoons, or NoteBenders, or whatever it's going to be called. But I have no experience myself in corporate mergers, and I'll accept the cooler-heads advice from @gazumped and others here.

It's a bit of a Goldilocks situation. You know, "This porridge is too hot. This porridge is too cold." BendyNote's new owners communicate too little. Twitter's new owner ... 😣

[Jon/t 1,289]

3 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

EverSpoons, or NoteBenders

Oh yes I love both of these 😂

[WilliamL 654]

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I wouldn't mind a little more communication from EverSpoons, or NoteBenders, or whatever it's going to be called. But I have no experience myself in corporate mergers, and I'll accept the cooler-heads advice from @gazumped and others here.

It's a bit of a Goldilocks situation. You know, "This porridge is too hot. This porridge is too cold." BendyNote's new owners communicate too little. Twitter's new owner ... 😣

Elon Musk - above reproach 😬

I used the email address pink elephant posted and sent a message expressing the thoughts I’ve posted here, don’t think it will make a single bit of a difference but at least I can say I tried something. Was checking linked in and Ian is gone alongside other managers and staff, yet there is nothing from the new owners telling us what’s going on. I just find that odd, complacent and disrespectful to people paying hard earned (ever more so these days!) money to use and support the product. 

[CalS 5,280]

There is an adage with takeovers and mergers for the participants - If you don't tell folks what is going on they will make stuff up.  Applies to customers as well.  May be a little too early to tell BS's approach.  

[Frki2 76]

While waiting for some merger update, Tom Solid view 

 

 

Dont agree totally with him, but some update would be cool 😂

[Boot17 1,450]

14 hours ago, Frki2 said:

Tom Solid view 

Lame.

[Frki2 76]

8 hours ago, Boot17 said:

Lame.

Agree. But also, some update would be nice, just to see what is/will be happening

[AlbertR 531]

14 hours ago, Frki2 said:

Dont agree totally with him <Tom Solid>, but some update would be cool

Tom recorded his video in December last year. So some statements (esp. regarding Backlinks) are outdated. I think he'll update it near time...

Hope this will come together with an update from EN reps regarding thier future steps 🙏

[eric99 980]

7 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

Tom recorded his video in December last year. So some statements (esp. regarding Backlinks) are outdated. I think he'll update it near time...
 

Hmm, he published it 18 hours ago. He should know that his video is obsolete. I think he's biased...

[AlbertR 531]

9 minutes ago, eric99 said:

He should know that his video is obsolete.

Now he knows 😉
... and answered "to be frank, I didn't expect that they would add a backlink feature so quickly. Well, be ensured I'll release another video about this soon."

[eric99 980]

22 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

Now he knows 😉
... and answered "to be frank, I didn't expect that they would add a backlink feature so quickly. Well, be ensured I'll release another video about this soon."

What does this say about the rest of his predictions?

[AlbertR 531]

... that he has to think about... It's easy to catch followers with EN bashing statements these days... 😞
But he was able to get an interview with Ian Small before some months. So it might be possible that he'll get another chance - if he trys for that...

[Boot17 1,450]

His main reason for posting as he says: "now we come to the point where I just saw a feature announcement"...

But this feature announcement is an *additional* way to add a link to another note -- it's not the *only* way as he is wont to make it sound. (Has he never linked a note in Evernote before this?) And then he totally glosses over the keyboard shortcut and thinks you can only point and click with a mouse to add a link? He is also ignorant of the fact that the way Evernote implemented it you can use advanced search features to find the note you want to link to -- i.e. you can find the note you want to link to by more ways than just the note title which is only what most other similar tools offer.

In the end, it's an uninformed and ignorant piece and looks like it caters to other users who don't even know the difference between a link and a backlink.

[Paul A. 621]

9 hours ago, Boot17 said:

In the end, it's an uninformed and ignorant piece and looks like it caters to other users who don't even know the difference between a link and a backlink.

He's definitely very sour on Evernote and doesn't fully explore or explain the linking capabilities. That said, I totally agree with him with respect to no tagging improvements, and especially:

• EN's inability to perform inline actions e.g. using @ signs or [[ brackets. MANY productivity apps have implemented something along these lines using one of those two conventions, and Evernote still not having done so is a big miss, IMHO.

Still, while I find Evernote lacking in this respect (and in the poor sync, though that should be fixed soon, hopefully), I haven't found anything that replicates everything I do like about Evernote, so I'm still here, for the time being.

Really, I want to hear more from the Bending Spoons CEO. He's supposedly a long-time EN user, and so he must have an opinion on areas he feels Evernote is lacking. I'm selfishly hoping he's a tags user and is aware of the growing @ and [[ convention in productivity software! 😂 

[eric99 980]

Yesterday I saw a new announcement from Bending Spoons but I can't find it back. Has anybody else seen this and where can I find it?

[HeBoIz 241]

I read it too. Looked like a leaked document from Bending Spoon Management. Announcing lots of evernote staff from expert team to be sacked for reorganization.. 

[gazumped 11,666]

5 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Yesterday I saw a new announcement from Bending Spoons but I can't find it back. Has anybody else seen this and where can I find it?

I did see a Forum email about staff levels being "streamlined" as part of the merger with Spoons but I think it must have been re-thought,  because the link gets a 'not found' error if you follow it.  Sounds like the usual though - when two organisations join,  there are always overlaps in accounting,  PR and so on which are already covered...

[Boot17 1,450]

5 hours ago, eric99 said:

Yesterday I saw a new announcement from Bending Spoons but I can't find it back. Has anybody else seen this and where can I find it?

There is a link to a cached version of it on the Evernote subreddit. Sounds like it probably got posted to the public forum accidentally.

[PinkElephant 8,115]

Sorry guys, I saw it and send the staff member who posted it a head up. It was sort of contradictory that it was posted publicly, but asked for confidential treatment.

Probably it got removed then.

Anybody who never made a mistake at work can throw me a stone into the monitor.

[agsteele 2,950]

The post that is cached in Reddit still exists.  But it is in the Evernote Experts area so not intended to be visible to those who are not Experts. It was addressed to Experts after we had a conference call with Francesco Patarnello.

Edited February 17, 2023 by agsteele
Clarification

[AlbertR 531]

@agsteeleCache is readable by anyone. Please be kind enough to remove the name of the poor man that made the mistake from here. THX

PS (sometime later): Maybe this will not help to stop the waves 😞. LinkedIn shows many statements of EN staff members who describe the situation they face... I hope  there will be a clear statement from BendingSpoons/EN to explain the situation in very near future 🙏

Edited February 17, 2023 by AlbertR
Added PS after some depressing findings...

[eric99 980]

3 hours ago, agsteele said:

The post that is cached in Reddit still exists.  But it is in the Evernote Experts area so not intended to be visible to those who are not Experts. It was addressed to Experts after we had a conference call with Francesco Patarnello.

Nothing new or unexpected in that announcement. I don't see why this should be hidden...

[Alxa 480]

Good to read that Bending Spoon's staff is already into Evernote and taking action and not leaving EN development side by side on their own. BS has some state of the art mobile software on the market. I am really curious and somehow looking forward to what is to come when these guys now get their hands on it. Maybe we finally even get a nice native app on mobile (especially for Android 🙏) again.

[AlbertR 531]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:11 PM, Alxa said:

Good to read that Bending Spoon's staff is already into Evernote and taking action and not leaving EN development side by side on their own.

Hmm, whom should we believe in? BS mentions an "extremely strong team of employees to focus on EN" (1) in parallel to a "mass layoff" of EN employees (2)... 

(1) is cited from the accidently posted BS text 🤔
(2) is cited from EN employees in LinkedIn 😢

And the one who is best known within the EN user base and seemed to be a really credible rep (Ian Small) is no longer part of the team... His vita shows "CEO Evernote from Oct. 2018–Jan. 2023" after "Evernote was acquired by Bending Spoons S.p.A. in January 2023" 😤

But: He didn't stop to be member of the "Board of Directors of Yinxiang Biji -  Evernote's spinoff serving China [markets]". So he is still on board 👍

[gazumped 11,666]

1 hour ago, AlbertR said:

whom should we believe in?

We'll have to wait for more information.  I have seen takeovers from both sides,  and if Company A - which has a full set of IT, accounting, marketing and HR staff - takes over Company B - which also has a full set...  Then the prime area where some useful cost savings can be made immediately is in merging departments and losing anyone regarded as 'spare'. 

Yinxiang Biji is a separate company serving the China market,  so separate from any other activities.

'Spoons seems to be pretty strong in IT skills,  so their influence shouldn't be discounted - it will be interesting to see where this goes...

[Paul A. 621]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

We'll have to wait for more information.  I have seen takeovers from both sides,  and if Company A - which has a full set of IT, accounting, marketing and HR staff - takes over Company B - which also has a full set...  Then the prime area where some useful cost savings can be made immediately is in merging departments and losing anyone regarded as 'spare'.

Yes, that is expected, but there do seem to be a number of engineers laid off as well, among other technical roles. Time will tell whether this heralds a change in strategy / direction for EN or not. Based on what I've read, the technical cuts seem to be focused on just a couple of teams.

[AlbertR 531]

12 hours ago, gazumped said:

it will be interesting to see where this goes...

Yes it MIGHT be only interesting for people who are not affected. All the others (employees and users) are frightended. Before 3 days one could read statements like "can hardly think straight today" after "every single person" of a team at EN "were all laid off".

OK, it was a marketing team whose members really know how to work with social media. but is it really a good idea to start layoffs there without having good arguments from upper management?

And there are layoff-statements from development and support guys and girls also...

[WilliamL 654]

I have been keeping track of linked in and it’s pretty clear Evernote has been gutted and most of its staff sacked. Let’s me quite clear - whatever Evernote is now, it is NOT the product or company we spent our money to use. I’m personally disgusted by BS conduct and lack of communication. I pop here every now and then hoping things have changed and they have decided to show customers an ounce of respect, clearly not. 

[gazumped 11,666]

50 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

it’s pretty clear Evernote has been gutted and most of its staff sacked.

Wow - where are you getting this stuff?  I found one post on Linkedin about the marketing team,  and general web searches only turn up uninformed speculation from the press and YouTube about what might be going on.  While it's a horrible situation for the individuals involved,  marketing teams are an obvious soft target for a new company owner with its own marketing team. 

Evernote is still working for me,  and I plan on continuing to use it unless and until that becomes impractical.  I don't much care whether the new owners respect me as a customer,  just as long as their service still works!

[bwydoogh 71]

4 minutes ago, gazumped said:

I found one post on Linkedin about the marketing team,  and general web searches only turn up uninformed speculation from the press and YouTube about what might be going on.

Just search for "Evernote" on LinkedIN and filter on the contributions.

Some examples below ... lots of messages like these.

 

 

[agsteele 2,950]

Lay offs in a corporate take over are not at all unusual. They are hard on those affected but not unusual.

While the product does what it needs to do and whilst development continues I'm good to go. 

Not a great deal of point in analysing what was always going to happen.

[WilliamL 654]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

Wow - where are you getting this stuff?  I found one post on Linkedin about the marketing team,  and general web searches only turn up uninformed speculation from the press and YouTube about what might be going on.  While it's a horrible situation for the individuals involved,  marketing teams are an obvious soft target for a new company owner with its own marketing team. 

Evernote is still working for me,  and I plan on continuing to use it unless and until that becomes impractical.  I don't much care whether the new owners respect me as a customer,  just as long as their service still works!

It’s really easy actually - go to Ian Smalls profile and follow his comments, I counted a good amount all to folks who, like Ian have been sacked by BS. 

[AlbertR 531]

@agsteele Yep, this is true for sure. But You as an EN Expert have a relaxed view of the situation because You are member of the inner circle around the management. You have been invited to directly talk with the new CEO.

Is it part of a new strategy to handle customers? When do we see offical announcements? This thread did start after an official announcement before 3 months - after which we saw nothing.

 

[WilliamL 654]

7 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

@agsteele Yep, this is true for sure. But You as an EN Expert have a relaxed view of the situation because You are member of the inner circle around the management. You have been invited to directly talk with the new CEO.

Is it part of a new strategy to handle customers? When do we see offical announcements? This thread did start after an official announcement before 3 months - after which we saw nothing.

 

Bullseye! We are seeing by their actions exactly how the new regime views paying customers, I think it’s polite to say with contempt. It’s a pity - Evernote was getting onto the right track and things were getting good, now we got all this inner outer circle nonsense with a regime that view some as worth communication and others as not worth the effort. It’s perplexing, and frustrating as I am paid up till September, if I’d known what was coming I would have not paid for the year. 

[lost_gweedo 73]

It seems to me there's a couple of ways of looking at this situation.  

1. BS buys another company (EN) and goes through consolidation efforts as advised by a 3rd party with experience in the process.  Advice from 3rd party (or BS management, or whomever) is may not take into account the user/customer base being so invested in the EN product.  It is our second brain, after all, and it's worrisome for those of us who have so much time and info organized in their product.  Users will be OK after a period of time as things shake out.

2. EN is in the early stages of a death spiral (OK, maybe overly dramatic).

Either way, only time will tell.  Our guesses are simply guesses.  I plan to stick with it, but I've switched to a monthly payment plan until more is known. 🤷‍♂️

[AlbertR 531]

12 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

.. like Ian have been sacked by BS

??? My opinion is: It was one of his tasks to prepare EN to be sold (*). He stays to be board member of an EN subsidary and is CEO of Snapdocs which in turn is hold by a a group of investors of which "Sequoia" is mentioned often... 

You may have a look to Different Funds to get a glue of his expertise 😉

(*) From their point of view he did a good job...

[agsteele 2,950]

21 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

@agsteele Yep, this is true for sure. But You as an EN Expert have a relaxed view of the situation because You are member of the inner circle around the management. You have been invited to directly talk with the new CEO.

 

I take a pretty relaxed view of these kinds of situations whether or not I've had a conversation with the CEO or not. I really don't know what I would expect Bending Spoons to communicate to customers. They clearly aren't going to say you should expect a worse service or product following the takeover.

Neither would they say, to customers, 'We are going to lay off some staff after the take over' and certainly not until the staff had been told who would be affected.

We had lots of guesses at what the affect of the takeover was going to be before it took place. Few were informed. Now we are seeking answers to questions which may not, yet, have been answered by the new owners.

One thing the new CEO did say to the Experts was that they were astonished by the commitment of users to the Evernote product (Implied: compared to their existing product line) which they put down to the investment we put into storing everything.

I renewed my Personal plan last November so will start taking a very active interest in future developments in September or thereabouts.

[agsteele 2,950]

9 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

??? My opinion is: It was one of his tasks to prepare EN to be sold (*). He stays to be board member of an EN subsidary and is CEO of Snapdocs which in turn is hold by a a group of investors of which "Sequoia" is mentioned often...

Yes, that was always my view. Ian Small's job was to make Evernote sellable. I  would expect that it was agreed in the sale process that he would step aside very soon after the sale.

[gazumped 11,666]

3 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

We are seeing by their actions exactly how the new regime views paying customers

3 minutes ago, lost_gweedo said:

EN is in the early stages of a death spiral

Again wow...

A company,  whose CEO is a long time Evernote user and fan,  lives the dream and buys Evernote;  then needs to kick the new composite organisation into shape and deal with a bunch of layoffs,  while also keeping a huge customer base happy with ongoing service.  Seems to me they're concentrating on restructuring the workforce to continue delivering business as usual. 

That's a lot of work,  and it hasn't - as far as I know - affected the service one bit.  I'll grant that a lot of it was already in progress before the new guys came along,  but if the layoffs were as big a bloodbath as is being made out in some quarters,  few of the original team would be there to keep things on track.  If the new guys are prioritising talking to staff over talking to users,  they're avoiding lawsuits and looking after people they might want back.

As long as my syncs work and my data is safe I'll let them get on with it,  and look forward to hearing about new ideas in due course.  There's probably a year's worth of development already in hand,  so that may not be until Q3 or Q4.  But there's no point giving competitors advance notice of what's going to be in the pipeline.

Mind you all those competitors are going to be pushing the gloom and despondemcy angles - but without AFAICS any justification whatsoever...

 

[AlbertR 531]

3 minutes ago, agsteele said:

I renewed my Personal plan last November so will start taking a very active interest in future developments in September or thereabouts.

I run two accounts (Professional and Enterprise) and am highly interested in a stable and ever-lasting product. My concern is only based on missing reliability of the new managment. We often saw that worse management was able to kill best products...

[lost_gweedo 73]

3 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Again wow...

My death spiral comment is, as I stated, a bit dramatic.  And only one of the options I wrote.  And I might be wrong.  Pulling a couple words from a previous post risks losing the context.  Like I said, we're all just guessing since we're not hearing anything from the new owners (cough, Bending Spoons, cough)

[gazumped 11,666]

1 minute ago, lost_gweedo said:

My death spiral comment is, as I stated, a bit dramatic.

Sorry - it was a good phrase though!  

[WilliamL 654]

30 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Again wow...

A company,  whose CEO is a long time Evernote user and fan,  lives the dream and buys Evernote;  then needs to kick the new composite organisation into shape and deal with a bunch of layoffs,  while also keeping a huge customer base happy with ongoing service.  Seems to me they're concentrating on restructuring the workforce to continue delivering business as usual. 

That's a lot of work,  and it hasn't - as far as I know - affected the service one bit.  I'll grant that a lot of it was already in progress before the new guys came along,  but if the layoffs were as big a bloodbath as is being made out in some quarters,  few of the original team would be there to keep things on track.  If the new guys are prioritising talking to staff over talking to users,  they're avoiding lawsuits and looking after people they might want back.

As long as my syncs work and my data is safe I'll let them get on with it,  and look forward to hearing about new ideas in due course.  There's probably a year's worth of development already in hand,  so that may not be until Q3 or Q4.  But there's no point giving competitors advance notice of what's going to be in the pipeline.

Mind you all those competitors are going to be pushing the gloom and despondemcy angles - but without AFAICS any justification whatsoever...

 

If that’s your view that’s fine. Mines is simple - communication shows they value and care about customers and want to reassure them in the transition and regarding the direction ahead. 
 

There has been none of that. The conclusion is quite a logical one. 

[gazumped 11,666]

48 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

communication shows they value and care about customers and want to reassure them in the transition and regarding the direction ahead.

Having done a bit of marketing myself I wondered how I would write such a message - came up blank:  can't think of much to say apart from "we're still here... everything is fine..."  which sounds fake as heck.

Sometimes I (now) use ChatGPT to suggest directions,  but it hadn't much to offer either...  🤔

[PinkElephant 8,115]

We have some people here who want more communication.

How so: Sending mails to the customers, telling that next week the marketing department will be handed the last paycheck ? Probably before anybody talked to these fellows in person ? Come on guys, don't be naive.

The running system is more robust than depending on a few marketing guys, or devs. Otherwise Twitter would have tweeted the last Tweet months ago. Same here.

We had a release every 3 weeks on average for the last 2 years. We will see if this continues, as an early warning signal.

And yes, of course a better communication policy would be a nice change.

[Frki2 76]

5 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

We have some people here who want more communication.

How so: Sending mails to the customers, telling that next week the marketing department will be handed the last paycheck ? Probably before anybody talked to these fellows in person ? Come on guys, don't be naive.

The running system is more robust than depending on a few marketing guys, or devs. Otherwise Twitter would have tweeted the last Tweet months ago. Same here.

 

It is not "more communication" but any communication whatsoever. I dont expect that they announce to us layoffs or internal company plans, BUT, direction of the company, first few steps, video message ( hey it is 2023 ), any nice message from BS site or social networks, anything. Until now, we had one Ian Small goodbay letter + very bare new CEO letter with cachy popular frase "i am evernote user". So yeah, some structured communication would be nice, just to stop people of thinking what will happen next. And there was enough time to do that. This is communication failure by the book. 

[AlbertR 531]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

Sometimes I (now) use ChatGPT to suggest directions,  but it hadn't much to offer either...  🤔

Asked it the same question and got a nice template with the following statement inside: "... We want to reassure you that our commitment to providing you with high-quality services remains unchanged. ..."

<sarcasm> Maybe this is why marketing is going to be layed off? 🤔 </sarcasm>

[PinkElephant 8,115]

Ever been in such a situation ?

You have a multi layered dilemma here: Internal measures, in BOTH companies, the financial side (worse if you are publicly listed), your company network of suppliers (due for a shakeout as well), the customers.

If you have a few customers, it is simpler, you talk to them directly, confidentially. But with an atomized customer base like here ? Not communicating publicly for a while may be the best out of several bad options.

In times where the first LinkedIn profiles go on „searching“ while the employee information is still going on timing is plain impossible.

Anybody can interpret not being communicated at himself. For me they can spare me the snake oil vendors blahblah.

I would go for a nice roadmap instead …

[AlbertR 531]

25 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I would go for a nice roadmap instead …

s/nice/reliable/ and we'll be happy at the end 👍
EOT?

[Paul A. 621]

5 hours ago, WilliamL said:

Bullseye! We are seeing by their actions exactly how the new regime views paying customers, I think it’s polite to say with contempt.

4 hours ago, WilliamL said:

If that’s your view that’s fine. Mines is simple - communication shows they value and care about customers and want to reassure them in the transition and regarding the direction ahead. 

I agree there could have been more communication, but it doesn't necessarily imply such a dire attitude towards customers. I've been through similar corporate upheavals before, and even when well planned out, it's a very busy and often chaotic time. And remember Bending Spoons is (as far as I know) quite a small company who has never acquired anything the size of Evernote (in fact it wouldn't surprise me if Evernote was far bigger than BS in terms of number of employees at time of acquisition.) Not to mention the distance (physical / time zones / cultural) which makes things more challenging.

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

I would go for a nice roadmap instead …

This would be great. And it doesn't have to be very detailed to be reassuring. There's also all kinds of other communications which in the grand scheme of things don't tell us much, but which would make nervous users feel better, and ultimately I think that's what some of us need, some soothing of anxieties.

For example,  hypothetical reassuring communication from the BS CEO might cover some of these points:

• Tell us that the EN business unit is reporting directly to him, as it's the largest and most important unit in all of BS
• As a long-term user of Evernote, he is passionate about the product, yadda yadda yadda
• As such, he is 100% focused on Evernote's success, and is spending the majority of his time in the first half of 2023 in Redwood City, Austin, and Santiago, three of the cities where most of Evernote's employees live
• Though they've had to make some painful decisions, there is a strong leadership team in place at Evernote comprised of longterm Evernote employees and some experienced BS staff
• He's excited about Evernote's roadmap and the team has already started working on it. He can't wait to share more about his plans for Evernote next month
• As previously mentioned, the next major feature is real-time sync, which is on-track to launch publicly in Q2 (or insert rough date)

Then next month, follow-up with another email about roadmap could be something like:

• Reassure users that there are no plans to remove existing / beloved features
• Reassure users that subscription prices will not change dramatically in the near-term (or rip the bandaid off and announce new pricing plans ASAP)
• As a long-time user of Evernote, not only is he passionate about the production, but he has a vision of what it could be.
• He wants to build on "remember everything, accomplish anything" by continuing to develop capabilities in this area (OR articulate another vision of what EN could be)
• He's going to leverage BS mobile expertise to e.g. improve mobile app capabilities, particularly on tablets
• He's going to open up beta testing opportunities for more users, so that the most passionate EN users can see features early in development and help shape them via their feedback
• He'll have more to say about this mid-year

 

Etc. All hypothetical and just one example of a possible way to reassure users without (IMHO) unnecessarily creating competitive concerns by signaling future product direction in too much detail.

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,115]

I would let them do the job themselves.

These M&A consultants charge such indecent fees, I think they should at least work a little for their money.

I‘m in it for Santiago - much nicer weather this time of the year 😎

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

5 hours ago, lost_gweedo said:

It seems to me there's a couple of ways of looking at this situation.  

1. BS buys another company (EN) and goes through consolidation efforts as advised by a 3rd party with experience in the process.  Advice from 3rd party (or BS management, or whomever) is may not take into account the user/customer base being so invested in the EN product.  It is our second brain, after all, and it's worrisome for those of us who have so much time and info organized in their product.  Users will be OK after a period of time as things shake out.

2. EN is in the early stages of a death spiral (OK, maybe overly dramatic).

Either way, only time will tell.  Our guesses are simply guesses.  I plan to stick with it, but I've switched to a monthly payment plan until more is known. 🤷‍♂️

10 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

There's also all kinds of other communications which in the grand scheme of things don't tell us much, but which would make nervous users feel better, and ultimately I think that's what some of us need, some soothing of anxieties.

I'm in this general camp. I can't imagine why they'd communicate with customers about layoffs. But I do think that, bearing in mind that lack of information produces more anxiety than almost any actual information, it would be helpful to say something. Sometimes I think companies get lost in crunching numbers and lose track of the human psychology of their customers.

As for the poor Evernote marketers, though ... do a quick search on these forums for how people feel about Evernote's marketing, specifically in the form of the constant upsell for more expensive subscriptions that some people see. Also for "death spiral," a block we have run around many times before, lots of spiral but no actual death.

[Frki2 76]

12 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Ever been in such a situation ?

You have a multi layered dilemma here: Internal measures, in BOTH companies, the financial side (worse if you are publicly listed), your company network of suppliers (due for a shakeout as well), the customers.

If you have a few customers, it is simpler, you talk to them directly, confidentially. But with an atomized customer base like here ? Not communicating publicly for a while may be the best out of several bad options.

In times where the first LinkedIn profiles go on „searching“ while the employee information is still going on timing is plain impossible.

Anybody can interpret not being communicated at himself. For me they can spare me the snake oil vendors blahblah.

I would go for a nice roadmap instead …

I was in similar situation, but "my" company was acquiring other one. General misunderstanding guys from other company had was that we were the same, we were not, we were same on paper but as we actually bought them  layoffs were mainly on their side and our people just reorganised their positions or took positions from them. This is now happening in EN, and this is normal process. But, this doesent mean that there was no communication to customers and internal staff, there was, and there was lot of it.

But yeah, i would go for very nice roadmap as you said . Show us something, show us direction, plan, idea, whatever. Just say something

[WilliamL 654]

14 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

We have some people here who want more communication.

How so: Sending mails to the customers, telling that next week the marketing department will be handed the last paycheck ? Probably before anybody talked to these fellows in person ? Come on guys, don't be naive.

The running system is more robust than depending on a few marketing guys, or devs. Otherwise Twitter would have tweeted the last Tweet months ago. Same here.

We had a release every 3 weeks on average for the last 2 years. We will see if this continues, as an early warning signal.

And yes, of course a better communication policy would be a nice change.

There is a blog, which Ian used on a semi regular basis to keep users in the loop..:communication then is a fairly effortless process. 

[esetter230 16]

For those looking for pricing feedback, I was just notified that my premium subscription would increase from around $44 ( I forget what U paid last year) to $64. I might be ok with the increase if the syncing worked, but I’ve given up on the “We’re aware of the problem” response. 

[Boot17 1,450]

10 minutes ago, esetter230 said:

For those looking for pricing feedback, I was just notified that my premium subscription would increase from around $44 ( I forget what U paid last year) to $64. I might be ok with the increase if the syncing worked, but I’ve given up on the “We’re aware of the problem” response. 

Here are some relevant threads in the forum for that topic if you want to read what others have to say about it and add to the discussion there: (The Legacy subscription price increases were already in the pipeline prior to the Bending Spoons acquisition.)

• https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/144549-invoice-evernote-premium-2022-3709-invoice-premium-2023-5299-42/
• https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/143595-pricing/
• https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/144217-37-price-increase/
• https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/144405-price-increase-for-legacy-subscription/

 

[CalS 5,280]

 Re pricing.  I moved on and let my sub to EN expire in December 2021, after 12 years as a subscriber.  I kept a basic account using legacy EN just in case I missed something in my conversion. 

Whilst all this pricing increase discussion was in process I was receiving 50% off offers to rejoin.  I guess we see this all the time where the dollars invested to get new customers are less than the dollars invested to keep existing customers.  Not just an EN thing.

Maybe BS acquisition of EN was a cash flow thing and they saw some elasticity in pricing existing accounts whatever the push back on the forum?  🤷‍♂️

[janndk 495]

3 hours ago, esetter230 said:

For those looking for pricing feedback, I was just notified that my premium subscription would increase from around $44 ( I forget what U paid last year) to $64. I might be ok with the increase if the syncing worked, but I’ve given up on the “We’re aware of the problem” response. 

It seems that Evernote has removed all price info from the website!??? A bad sign?

[Alxa 480]

I just tried to test-open a paid account located in Germany. The pricings are shown after you type your e-mail address and choose a pass word. Got the pricing below. Don't know if they have risen. 70 € for a year of EN (only personal sub, yearly payment) in the current state of the product! Maybe they removed the prices from the initial landing page for being able to flexibly change prices in their subscription check-out area I tested... we will see what is to come.

[gazumped 11,666]

Students still get 40% off according to the (current) website - maybe I'll go back to school...

 

[eric99 980]

4 hours ago, esetter230 said:

For those looking for pricing feedback, I was just notified that my premium subscription would increase from around $44 ( I forget what U paid last year) to $64. I might be ok with the increase if the syncing worked, but I’ve given up on the “We’re aware of the problem” response. 

And they need to provide a full HTML export, with working links to notes and resources !  Especially now that a proper roadmap isn't communicated, I need to ensure that my data is safe and can be converted to a standardized document. I want to be able to read it without any exotic tool or app...

[CalS 5,280]

6 minutes ago, eric99 said:

And they need to provide a full HTML export, with working links to notes and resource

Legacy dump to HTML gets you notes that work with a browser but links point back to EN.

[Boot17 1,450]

49 minutes ago, janndk said:

It seems that Evernote has removed all price info from the website!??? A bad sign?

26 minutes ago, Alxa said:

I just tried to test-open a paid account located in Germany. The pricings are shown after you type your e-mail address and choose a pass word. Got the pricing below. Don't know if they have risen. 70 € for a year of EN (only personal sub, yearly payment) in the current state of the product! Maybe they removed the prices from the initial landing page for being able to flexibly change prices in their subscription check-out area I tested... we will see what is to come.

I couldn't see pricing either (in browser incognito mode) and I didn't want to click through to create an account.

Interesting indeed. Seems like a dark pattern to me if they continue to hide up-front pricing like that long term.

[eric99 980]

11 hours ago, CalS said:

Legacy dump to HTML gets you notes that work with a browser but links point back to EN.

I know that the mac implementation is poor, but Legacy windows HTML export is perfect:  the note links are relative links to the proper html notes in the folder hierarchy and all resources can be navigated from within the notes. It really behaves like your own private website.

Also, different from the bloated V10 html, the legacy is very compact and readable.

Now, more than 2 years later, V10 developers are still "working diligently"  at coding a basic html link. Please electron developers,  If you  don't know how to do it,  have a look in the legacy windows implementation, you can learn a lot about basic web technology...

If legacy would be stopped before this is fixed in V10, I'll be forced to quit immediately to safeguard my precious data

[lost_gweedo 73]

45 minutes ago, Alxa said:

I just tried to test-open a paid account located in Germany. The pricings are shown after you type your e-mail address and choose a pass word. Got the pricing below. Don't know if they have risen. 70 € for a year of EN (only personal sub, yearly payment) in the current state of the product! Maybe they removed the prices from the initial landing page for being able to flexibly change prices in their subscription check-out area I tested... we will see what is to come.

Agreed, I can't see this on the open web (United States).  But if I access my account via desktop app (mac) that links to web, and then click 'upgrade' I can see pricing structure. 

On another note, when comparing plans on their front facing website (with no pricing shown), it shows that it requires the Professional subscription to integrate with MS Teams.  That used to be a Personal subscription feature, I thought.  I know I briefly used it with my Personal subscription a couple of months ago...just tried to do it again and get an error.  bummer.

[PinkElephant 8,115]

As far as I remember the integrations may have been with the old Premium plan - when there was no Professional level. Or it was reserved for the EN Business (now Teams) accounts.

I don't think it ever was wrapped in Personal - Professional was launched exactly with this user group in mind. And Personal / Professional launched together, and were not changed since.

[Paul A. 621]

The layoff announcements continue on LinkedIn. Heavily skewed to software developers, QA, and other product people over the last couple of days. They include Geoff Barry, whom I don't know, but whose posts announcing a new desktop release I always read religiously.

Some people on Blind (an anonymous app for Tech people to chat about the industry) are claiming that the three rounds of layoffs total 50% or more of EN staff. I don't know whether that's true or whether that's exaggerated, but clearly the cuts run deep. There continue to be no open positions posted on the EN website, so it's not just a question of Bending Spoons wanting to trim certain skills and hire in others.

I'm beginning to get concerned that the primary focus on BS will be on monetizing their acquisition, not on improving the product. And that makes me sad.

[Frki2 76]

15 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

The layoff announcements continue on LinkedIn. Heavily skewed to software developers, QA, and other product people over the last couple of days. They include Geoff Barry, whom I don't know, but whose posts announcing a new desktop release I always read religiously.

Some people on Blind (an anonymous app for Tech people to chat about the industry) are claiming that the three rounds of layoffs total 50% or more of EN staff. I don't know whether that's true or whether that's exaggerated, but clearly the cuts run deep. There continue to be no open positions posted on the EN website, so it's not just a question of Bending Spoons wanting to trim certain skills and hire in others.

I'm beginning to get concerned that the primary focus on BS will be on monetizing their acquisition, not on improving the product. And that makes me sad.

Unfortunately this layoffs are normal thing in M&A. Specially if BS team will take over much more  on their people, which is normal. Sorry for Geoff Barry to be layed off as he was on all new update posts :). But, again, no communcation what is happening, or road map. Not a good sign for me and i dont like it. Just my 5 cents.

[bwydoogh 71]

24 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

I'm beginning to get concerned that the primary focus on BS will be on monetizing their acquisition, not on improving the product. And that makes me sad.

My concern is mainly timing: the transition to Evernote V10 is far from ready (and with a legacy client still up-and-running).

The sync issues are one thing and that doesn't seem to be moving forward (I myself am participating in a preview program but neither through these forums nor through support am I getting any information on the further course of that beta or progress). Such magnitude of layoffs cannot possibly be without implications to software development teams (and everything around them).

[Alxa 480]

Wow, I thought they were testing the new sync for weeks now. Now hearing there is in fact not much going on makes me wonder as well.

[gazumped 11,666]

Like a few others here,  I have a couple of these t-shirts;  and while I have every sympathy with the staff involved,  this is completely normal for a takeover.  The new guys step in,  cut costs by laying off (probably too many) existing staff who (like we all do) thought they were unique and indispensable,  and generate a terrible vibe internally and externally as laid off staff emote,  the survivors keep their heads down and worry,  and customers draw every kind of conclusion.  Not much actual work gets done.  But nobody 'knows' anything about the overall strategy.

The new guys can't go public until they have the changeover locked down - "we're fine and doing great" would be verifiably false given the other messages flying around.  To abuse a Matrix/ Dog Soldiers quote "There is no Spoon" until the admin changes are completed.

I think the new guys are probably busy enough without igniting a blizzard of demands and complaints from users by outlining any generalities intended to keep us quiet in the meantime.  The CEO of BS (a title to be proud of) has probably been ghosting these forums for years,  so he's likely to know us well.

Offers may have been made that are yet to be accepted,  business deals may be in progress contingent on organisational changes.  We don't know.

But it's neither our ball or a democracy.  While change sucks,  users have two choices - if and when the service fails,  or developments go in unexpected directions,  find a way around it or move on.  Our choice...

[eric99 980]

49 minutes ago, bwydoogh said:

The sync issues are one thing and that doesn't seem to be moving forward (I myself am participating in a preview program

So, have you ever used it yourself?

[bwydoogh 71]

7 minutes ago, eric99 said:

So, have you ever used it yourself?

Yes. Why?

[eric99 980]

4 hours ago, bwydoogh said:

Yes. Why?

If you've tested the beta sync system, what's your experience with it?

[gazumped 11,666]

3 hours ago, eric99 said:

If you've tested the beta sync system, what's your experience with it?

🤐...and how was that non-disclosure worded again?

[Sugeeth Krish 475]

On 1/20/2023 at 10:44 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I wouldn't mind a little more communication from EverSpoons, or NoteBenders, or whatever it's going to be called. But I have no experience myself in corporate mergers, and I'll accept the cooler-heads advice from @gazumped and others here.

It's a bit of a Goldilocks situation. You know, "This porridge is too hot. This porridge is too cold." BendyNote's new owners communicate too little. Twitter's new owner ... 😣

We'd want to be optimistic calling it a 'merger'. sadly, it isnt

Evernote, joins the 'Bending Spoons' suite of apps, thats the way, the old CEO, Ian Small, described in his post. I guess, how things may go, is rather obvious, from here. 

At this point, i care much for the cultural side of things. Will 'Bending Spoons' keep my beloved 'Evernote' running? irrespective of it, change the name or whatever ?I hope so. 

[Paul A. 621]

8 hours ago, Frki2 said:

Unfortunately this layoffs are normal thing in M&A. Specially if BS team will take over much more  on their people, which is normal. Sorry for Geoff Barry to be layed off as he was on all new update posts :). But, again, no communcation what is happening, or road map. Not a good sign for me and i dont like it. Just my 5 cents.

Layoffs are normal after an acquisition, it's the (apparent) magnitude of the layoffs that is concerning. I wonder how much debt BS took on to buy EN? It could be that they need to increase operating margin to service the new debt, just like Elon Musk has slashed expenses at Twitter to service the debt he took on as part of that acquisition.

Let's hope Evernote doesn't go the way of Twitter - where software development has practically ground to a halt since the acquisition and which has increasingly experienced glitches, small outages, and overall service degradation.

[eric99 980]

39 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

Let's hope Evernote doesn't go the way of Twitter - where software development has practically ground to a halt since the acquisition and which has increasingly experienced glitches, small outages, and overall service degradation.

The good news is, we already have a lot of glitches for 2 years, so that can only get better 🙂

[Paul A. 621]

22 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Thet good news is, the glitches we already have for 2 years, so that can only get better 🙂

While I hope you're right, I tend to believe that it can always get worse, so we'll see. Fingers crossed.

[CalS 5,280]

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/27/bending-spoons-lays-off-129-evernote-staffers/

[JustRockItNow 4]

On 2/21/2023 at 9:49 PM, Alxa said:

I just tried to test-open a paid account located in Germany. The pricings are shown after you type your e-mail address and choose a pass word. Got the pricing below. Don't know if they have risen. 70 € for a year of EN (only personal sub, yearly payment) in the current state of the product! Maybe they removed the prices from the initial landing page for being able to flexibly change prices in their subscription check-out area I tested... we will see what is to come.

I booked Professional today for 8,33 €/Month so it is 99,99€/Year which is totaly reasonable. 

I am in Germany / Deutschland.