Its all so quiet....

AMRivlin wrote:
See that's the thing mdgm, even if they are "preparing" or testing with developers with NDAs, it gives people on the edge of buying a QNAP/Synology/other, no interest in the brand if there is no official comment from Netgear/Council. If I am inventing a car that runs on water, but I don't tell anyone, how can I expect to sell any. (Ok bad example, but that will have to do for now)

The thing is NetGear already has released the ReadyNAS. There's a difference between releasing a brand new product and updating/refreshing an existing one. They have commented that there is no ETA for the new UI coming to x86 and that it's not coming to Sparc. Papabear outlines why announcing updates to products well in advance is a bad thing here: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=349694#p349694

Sure NetGear has probably got their plans for the next few years mapped out pretty well by now but sharing them with the community would likely reduce their revenue not help it.

AMRivlin wrote:
I own a Pro6, and I love it, I don't even mind the style of the hardware. What I dislike is the UI. Netgear could take advantage of the users here; I would love to have discussions about what new features we want moving forward. iphone/android support/monitoring, dropbox style folders, better UI. Instead of only using this as a support forum.

If the new UI comes to existing products one would expect an extensive public beta test and plenty of opportunity for feedback, suggestions etc. Discussion about new features that are desired, feedback etc. is always welcome. Indeed there is a Feedback forum and a Feature Request subforum. I would say that most users rarely need to use the UI. After configuring it, it should only need to be used if there's a problem, a firmware update or add-on needs to be done or some tweaking of the configuration. It's largely set and forget. A UI is not too big a deal to me. Indeed in many ways I'd rather development time was spent on function rather than form (though both are important). The current UI may be old, but it works and gets the job done. A new UI requires a massive number of development hours to develop which leaves less time for other work to be done. Now other users disagree and it does appear that a new UI for x86 is in development. I'm not going to say no to a new UI and I'm looking forward to it, but I'm fine with waiting for it to be ready.

There already apps for monitoring the NAS on the iPhone e.g. you can use the iStat add-on on the ReadyNAS and the iStat app from the Apple App Store. There is also the Egnyte Local Cloud add-on and a Dropbox community add-on. There are plenty of options already to do much of what you want and there are some promising new things like OwnCloud.

AMRivlin wrote:
Sure I get the comments about hardware, NAS is niche and will probably remain that way, and they don't want to be stuck with a stock of old 2009 boxes, but why not post on here or twitter, that they are working on new software, and not just leave it up to these "disappointment posts" and the loyalists conjecture about their 5.3.4 release. :)

5.3.4 is ARM not x86. 5.3.5 is the next ARM firmware. They have answered questions on Twitter and FaceBook about different things. We know that FTP is planned to be added to ARM and other features.

The current ReadyNAS line is already very good. If you need a new NAS now is a fine time to buy, but the Pro 6 is already the latest and greatest desktop ReadyNAS.

AMRivlin wrote:
I will AGAIN post this (starting to sound like a broken record) http://www.synology.com/dsm/index.php?lang=us This hasn't been released yet, but it shows what can be done and encourages new customers as well as repeats.

If NetGear brings the new UI to existing devices there'll likely be a public beta well before a production firmware comes which would give plenty of time to show off the new UI in a similar fashion. Perhaps you are underestimating how much work it would take to redo the UI. It would take a long time to develop and it's not the kind of thing I'd want to show off long before it's ready (if it were me working on it). A new UI wouldn't be an incremental update to the existing one, it'd be a complete redesign, a radical change.

AMRivlin wrote:
Does Netgear/QNAP/Iomega steal from these ideas? Most definitely, does it hurt Synology? No.

Each brand seeks to gain market share, to differentiate etc. Different strategies may work for different companies. Now I haven't spent much time looking at what Synology has to offer, but if they choose to release info on their updates well in advance that's up to them. Each NAS vendor would most likely look to see what their competition is doing and see if they have any good ideas worth considering. Indeed NetGear originally saw iSCSI as a business only feature, but due to significant demand for the feature and competitive pressure now offers it on the home x86 models (Pioneer/Ultra/Ultra Plus) not just the business ones.

AMRivlin wrote:
This thread is a month old, yet no one from Netgear chimes in. That is the problem we are talking about here. If Netgear would seize onto the brand and promote it, people will create their own buzz. Instead we are dancing around negative buzz here.

NetGear does seek to promote their brand, but there's a limit to how much they're going to divulge to us in advance of future plans. These things take time and patience is important. The NetGear developers who frequent this forum do so in their free time out of love for the product. It's possible they may not have noticed this thread or had anything really to contribute to add to what's been said at this time. We can speculate about what they may/may not do.