[Vampyr]

This was a reply in another thread, but I think it warrants a thread of its own.

People have asked for changes and improvements, but these are not implemented, possibly by shortage of BBO employees.

BBO cannot but be making record revenues, so why can they not hire more staff, even if only on a temporary basis until BBO becomes a credible substitute for real bridge? I realise that this is not why BBO was created originally, but this could be a real opportunity. If functionality were improved, the EBU and ACBL and clubs leagues et cetera might still use occasionally use BBO even after their premises reopen for business. For example, at my main club, we play one evening a week and have been giving serious consideration for quite some time to having another session. Unfortunately, our premises are not available on any other evenings. With some investment now, BBO could fill in the gap for years to come.

[pilowsky]

Could not agree more!

[paulg]

I'm if it were as simple as just hiring people, especially at a time when more people are probably available for short-term contracts, then I expect BBO would have done it.

But we've seen over the past two months that the software architecture of BBO is old and has grown organically over the past couple of decades. There are plenty of dependencies between systems and they have to deal with the many people on the BBO Forums who refuse to upgrade their clients. To work with this code base needs experience and you cannot just drop new people in without training.

They also have to take care when making changes. The newer BBO users will be less tolerant of downtime caused by new programmer errors than long-term users, who were never very tolerant themselves.

If someone could assure BBO that this level of usage, and revenue, will continue for the next X years then BBO could make firm plans. It would probably involve a complete rewrite of the backend into a more scalable platform and the dropping of support of the oldest clients.

The history of software companies making such changes is littered with promises, delays, and user calls for a return to the good old days. Despite IBM's traditional policy, throwing more bodies at the solution rarely delivers both a happy supplier and consumer.

[FelicityR]

Yes, they have an opportunity, but as much as online bridge can be fun it doesn't beat the community spirit of actually sitting down with friends in a club. Your club must be a real exception to the rule with only one session available per week. BBO have proved that they can cope (to the most part) with an unprecedented number of players online, many fairly new to the notion of playing their bridge online, or players who already play online occasionally as opposed to regularly.

In business terms, BBO have seen their customer base grow organically due to the pandemic. I am sure they are looking at ways of keeping these new customers. But there's a flip side to all this as when this pandemic is over, real bridge clubs will not want to lose members either. It's a delicate balancing act, that's for sure.

[pilowsky]

I don't know what Club you go to. I have tried at least six face to face clubs in Sydney. The experience is the opposite of pleasant. One Director explained to me that all South African Jewish Women were arrogant - presumably, this includes my dead mother. Despite my complaints to the Recorder he is still employed by the NSWBA. AND, I was told the second time I brought it up that I should not make a fuss because it's Christmas! I may not be the most charming person I know, but believe it or not, I can do without the kind of behaviour that would have resulted in summary dismissal from any workplace in my Country. He is not the only misogynistic racist antisemite that I have encountered at the Bridge Club (or the Chess Club when I was a child). Nowadays, Trump seems to have normalised this kind of behaviour but frankly, I prefer to play Bridge from the safety and comfort of my own home. As I said elsewhere that kind of "community spirit" is not for me. I like my friends. You can keep yours.

[pescetom]

paulg, on 2020-June-02, 01:03, said:

If someone could assure BBO that this level of usage, and revenue, will continue for the next X years then BBO could make firm plans. It would probably involve a complete rewrite of the backend into a more scalable platform and the dropping of support of the oldest clients.

The history of software companies making such changes is littered with promises, delays, and user calls for a return to the good old days. Despite IBM's traditional policy, throwing more bodies at the solution rarely delivers both a happy supplier and consumer.

BBO can do a lot to ensure that this level of usage and revenue will continue by continuing to improve their platform, and improving it to the point that a startup competitor cannot easily offer something better.
Support for the older clients is surely a red herring, as Flash dies at the end of the year and they have no reason to maintain availability of the obsolete Windows app and could just announce phase out at the end of this year.
The two burning issues right now are to finish the current HTML client and to upgrade tournament management to meet the demands of new users coming from f2f.
The development of a more scalable platform is a much bigger challenge but also not so urgent now that the server split is in place.
I agree that just throwing programmers at it is not the answer, but a significant investment in a more complete professional software design/development/quality process does seem a wise move.