NetObjects Fusion Users...

[turtle - [TNO]]

.
Thank you

Mike

[Samir Arora /:-)]

Dear NetObjects Fusion Users,

On Saturday September 1, 2001, NetObjects announced that it would cease
operations. It is very hard to express the range of feelings I have had
over the last few days. I feel sad that after 6 years of giving
NetObjects all our energy and dedication, that we were unable to build a
company to last.

First of all, I would personally like to take responsibility and
ownership for the difficult situation we are in. I am very sorry that we
were not able come up with a better alternative. I, along with my
management team, have spent the last several quarters giving our outmost
in looking for funding and exploring strategic options. Even as late as
last week, we were very close to getting a transaction done.
Unfortunately for all of us, Nasdaq's un-timely decision to delist us
last week left us with but one choice- to reduce operational expenses
and work on getting a buyer for our products. Simply put, we just ran
out of time.

My path started at Apple Computer in 1986, when I started work on a germ
of a radical new idea- To revolutionize information by making it
possible for ordinary people to create, publish, distribute and consume
navigatable information. This work led to creating a company called Rae
Technology, with other 3 founders in 1992 that created one of the
earliest Information Navigation applications. This in turn led to the
founding out NetObjects to create the first complete Web Site Building
product for the Internet. These were amazing times, Mosaic became
Netscape, and Yahoo and Excite were under 10 employees. With several
Home Page Builders in the market, NetObjects helped launch the Site
building revolution with NetObjects Fusion in 1996.

The last 6 years is a testament to the fact that a small team of people,
with deep passion and total dedication, can change the status quo.
Innovation is hard. Innovation is very expensive. Innovation is
specially difficult if you are in an industry where prices are falling
and you have a 200 pound gorilla that has deeper pockets than you. The
first movers in early stage markets have the hard task of creating the
future while trying to survive the defenders as the market grows. I feel
a great loss to see companies that helped define the Web go away-
Netcom, Netscape, and now NetObjects.

We have made our fair share of mistakes, but I can look back an say with
certainty- we gave it all we had. My heart goes out to all my employees-
who have done everything one can ask, and even more over the last year.
What makes it specially hard is that NetObjects had started to turn the
corner- with a superb release Fusion MX, and the beginnings of a great
online platform- NetObjects Matrix.

I am most proud of the number of people we have touched worldwide. The
Fusion users worldwide are an amazing testament to the power of what we
created. We cared, and in turn, you all cared back. And in doing so, we
jointly created something very very wonderful. These feelings run deep-
and I hope to continue my relationship with most of you into the future.

So what happens next?

I am dedicated to ensuring a smooth transition for all of the users.
This is a personal commitment. In addition, NetObjects has created a
NetObjects Transition Team to work on a self managed process. We are
looking for the best buyers for NetObjects Fusion and Matrix. You can
send information to our transition team at trans...@netobjects.com.

What about us?

I would like to thank every one of our users that have helped create
this strong community of Fusion users worldwide. In my entire career, I
have not felt as touched personally as I am by you all. Thank you for
all the emails and messages of your support during this time. Some of
you have asked for a new mailing list- I have created one at
www.samirarora.com that you can subscribe to. You can also continue to
email me during the transition at s...@netobjects.com, or in the future
personally at s...@samirarora.com.

As usual, please do not hesitate to let me know what I can do to manage
this situation better.

With warm regards,

sa /:-)

[John Lewis]

Samir,

T H A N K Y O U for doing your best, and for "caring." I plan to stick with
Fusion and renewed my annual membership to Coolmaps last Sunday.

I am 58. My dad worked for IBM all his life until he died, beginning in the
early forties. My uncle was the chauffer to Thomas Watson Sr. I grew up
around IBMers when it had the spirit and caring that you and others at
Netobjects have displayed since the beginning and through the transition.
You are more of a true blue IBMer than Lou Gerstner!

I also had the pleasure of personally knowing Erik Jonsson for 12 years. He
was a co-founder of Texas Instruments who became the Mayor of Dallas
following the Kennedy assassination. He pulled the community together and
made it believe in itself again by starting the Goals for Dallas program. I
had the privilege of serving as its Executive Director for 12 years. Mr.
Jonsson was asked once why he started Goals for Dallas, to sum up the
program in one word. The word he chose was "caring." It is an important word
that seems to have lost its way among many of our largest companies.

Thanks to you and everyone at Netobjects for "caring." A long time ago I
tried FrontPage and other programs and finally found Netobjects. What a
lifesaver! Great program. Great support. All the way.

I'm sticking with you, Samir. I will sign up on the new mailing list.

Thanks,

John Lewis
President
GoodQuestion, Inc.
Orlando, Florida
e-mail: net...@concentric.net

PS: following is the e-mail I posted to the newsgroup, with a similar
message about IBM
sent to Lou Gerstner...

Netobjects ceased operations on Saturday. On Sunday I renewed my Coolmaps
subscription for another year. At the same time everyone is trying to save
the
Fusion product, all of us must support Coolmaps and make sure it stays in
business. I have also e-mailed IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner with the message
that I
was a diehard user of Lotus Smartsuite until IBM bought it and buried it,
and,
if IBM is responsible for the end of Fusion, I personally would never
purchase
another product or service from IBM or have a kind word to say about the
company. My dad worked for IBM all his life since the early forties, so I
have
always felt a certain pride for what the company stood for. In the past
several
years I have become deeply deeply disappointed in IBM. If anyone else would
like
to e-mail Lou Gerstner, you can find his e-mail address at the following
site:
http://www.ibm.com/lvg/

John Lewis
Orlando, Florida

[Barry Cohen]

Thank you Samir. Thank you for a wonderful product that helped me to start
a business when I needed it most. I've not looked forward to the day that I
might actually have to learn a new product. With Fusion, I don't think I
ever opened a manual, though I did click on help once, I think. It is that
intuitive of a program.

I wish you and all your staff the best of luck in whatever the future may
bring.

Barry
--
Barca Solutions
http://www.barcasolutions.com

[Michael Kujawa]

Thank you Samir,

 

I have been a user since Ver 2.0 and have never seen

anything like NOF on the market. I have written to commend

you on such fine software in the past and have even evolved

into a Team NetObjects player. A privilege and honor I will

continue to try and live up to.

 

Keep NetObjects if you can and talk with some of the little

players like Swish, CodeCharge and Jasc. Alot of little players

developing along side can create a web building application

none could ever match. ( No one can match MX now...just imagine )

 

NetObjects can and will continue.

 

Thanks again Samir,

for the best money making software I have ever known

I've made alot with C++ and Visual FoxPro but alot more using NOF.

 

The very best in blessings for you now and in the future.

--
Michael Kujawa
Team NetObjects
http://www.kujawas.net

[Werner Lehl]

Thank you, Samir.
Petra (TNO) will contact you again regarding investor.

Werner
www.nof-club.de

Samir Arora /:-) <s...@netobjects.com> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
3B96A248...@netobjects.com...

[Webber [ TNO ]]

Thank you for the kind words, Samir and hope that there is a brighter light at
the end of this tunnel. You have one heck of a product and one heck of a team.

Good luck and remember we are the strongest in the weakest time of our life
so..... we may be down BUT NEVER OUT!!!

--
=====
Best Regards,
Webber / ver 1.0 - Team NetObjects
Reply to: MY...@home.com
http://www.MortgageYellowPages.com/
http://www.WebSchematics.com/
http://www.YourLincolnPark.com/
=====
"Werner Lehl" <WL...@csi.com> wrote in message
news:3b96...@raphael2.coolmaps.com...
: Thank you, Samir.

: >
: >
: >
:
:

[Werner Lehl]

John -

I“ve said it a few days ago already. We have to "fight" IBM ! I know from
hundreds of people writing mails to Lou Gerstner. But: No reply at all. No
statement. Simply nothing. They don“t care... !!!
What they might have ignored is, that we are all webmasters.
Imagine, that we all express on our webpages worldwide, that we personally
refuse IBM products from now on... imagine...

Just my 2 emotional cents ;-(

Werner

John Lewis <net...@concentric.net> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
3B96AA96...@concentric.net...

[Rajeev Kaula]

Hi Samir,

Thank you for caring for users. It is a rare quality in today's MS$$ world.
One of the reasons I started using Fusion was the support features available
including newsgroups. I am glad my perceptions were correct. Fusion is a
wonderful product and I have enjoyed using it for the past two years. I hope
the new buyer will extend it further.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Rajeev Kaula.

"Samir Arora /:-)" wrote:

[Michael Pless]

Hi Samir,

like everyone else, I wanted to extend my well-wishes to you for the future,
my appreciation for this brief contact, and also the open offer of
communication. So too, I am grateful to everyone at NetObjects and the
newsgroups for their work. I don't ask many questions, as I am probably too
stubborn for my own good, but I certainly appreciate it when people I've
never met are willing to help me with no real benefit to themselves.

I have known of Fusion for only a short while - about 1 year - or so. I
found the application such a revelation that I loathe the prospect of
switching and shall remain with Fusion for as long as I am able. There is an
underlying logic to the way it compels me to work that is utterly absent
from anything I've experienced before. And my brief look at the market over
the past few days indicates that Fusion seems to be unique.

Fusion is not perfect, but it certainly offers a great deal. In time I'm
sure it would have offered more and I'm just as sure there are other vendors
breathing a sigh of relief, hoping the demise of Fusion is as permanent as
this community wants it to be temporary.

Others further down this thread have suggested alliances with various
vendors, and I repeat my enthusiasm for this idea, for no other reason than
both Macromedia and Adobe offer "suites" of applications, and tight
integration between the two will result in better productivity. Of course,
the vendors themselves must be agreeable, but overtures can be made...

Earlier, I questioned if the code for Fusion is needed, and whether a "new"
Fusion could be built from scratch. I don't know what's involved here,
having not written any programs for many years, but I'll bet there are many
who worked on Fusion who remember a fair bit of their work and could
duplicate it.

The idea that IBM (as a 48%) shareholder in NO will be able to take the code
and keep it seems flawed to me, for the remaining 52% might want their bit
of it, so I feel the question of the future of the Fusion source has yet to
answered satisfactorily.

So, my time with NO's products has been short but exceedingly rewarding.

I wait in hope for more.

Kindest regards,

Michael Pless

'Books do not exhaust words, words do not exhaust thoughts."

- Chinese proverb

[sean]

I'd say no one even reads those emails.

It's a circular filing cabinet.....

Sean

"Werner Lehl" <WL...@csi.com> wrote in message

news:9n6clt$g1...@news.netobjects.com...

[Bengie]

Thanks Samir for creating Fusion for us.

I don't post much but I have been using NO Fusion since version 4 came out and reading
this group since.

Thanks again.
Good Luck

--
Bengie
bqa66 at yahoo dot com
--------------------------------------------
"Samir Arora /:-)" <s...@netobjects.com> wrote in message
news:3B96A248...@netobjects.com...

[Karl Strieby]

"Samir Arora /:-)" wrote:
>
> Dear NetObjects Fusion Users,

<snip>

Thank you, Samir, for posting that. We know it came from your heart,
and we share the pain you surely feel.

NetObjects will long live in my memory for its/your leadership in the
"no vapourware" area and otherwise honest and forthcoming dealings with
your customers. Certain "200-pound Gorillas" that you mention in
passing might want to take note of this. When their day comes, the
mourners will be either nonexistant or dancing on the grave.

If you watched "Gladiator" (or read real history books) you know what
they used to say in the bowels of the Colliseum in Rome:

"Nos Moritari Salutamus." (We who are about to die salute you.)

A more topical 20th-century bastardized Latin commentary on
circumstances similar to yours goes : "Illigitmi non Carborundum."
(Don't let the b*st*rds grind you down)

Please stay in touch -- if nothing else to guide us in the proper
arrangement of the deck chairs. (Yea, that's a really Low Blow, but
meant in good fun!)
--
Please let us know (in the newsgroup, not by email) if you need more
help.

Regards,

Karl Strieby,
Team NetObjects

http://www.k-c-p.com/
=====

[redhead690]

I was shocked when I read this morning that Netobjects is closing shop.

I got my first version of Netobjects Fusion with the Netscape Publishing
suite (I don't remember the exact version number, though). However, since
that version did not allow HTML to be edited I decided to opt for FrontPage
(98/2K).

As soon as I learned MX finally support limited editing of HTML I gave it a
try and purchased MX, just about 2 month ago.

My primary reason was not only its price, but the reviews and especially the
styles which are much better than FrontPage's themes.

Well, I hope that Samir and his employees will find a great future ahead and
that MX survives in one way or another.

redhead

"Samir Arora /:-)" <s...@netobjects.com> wrote in message
news:3B96A248...@netobjects.com...
>

[Joerg Witzsch]

Samir,

thank You for sharing these thoughts.
Since I got in touch with FUSION 4, I had found the product that I was
looking for so desperately. It had saved me hours of work (and 5.0 caused
some extra hours ;-) ) and let me design websites from a "graphical" point
of view rather than from a "programmers". Like all the others in this post,
I can only encourage You to continue all efforts to keep (at least) MX
alive.

Please don't forget, that there are people out there, that had worked with
You on former releases and who have a strong insight and bond to the
product. They might be the key to NOFs future - like COOLMAPS or BITMOTION.
And: there are people out there like the ones in this newsgroup, that will
continue to promote the product and its unique advantages, that make it so
outstanding.

All my best wishes for the future of NOF and the future of the people, who
created, supported and managed it!

Joerg
http://www.witzsch.de/nof.html

[Steve Madwed]

Thank you very much for creating a program so simple to use that even I, a
programming phobic photographer, could make money to support my family! I
wish you well. If your ever out east stop by and say hi.

Steve Madwed
st...@capitolphoto.com
http://www.capitolphoto.com

"Samir Arora /:-)" wrote:

[Ransom [TNO]]

Thanks for all your help and for the great product that you and the
NetObjects folks came up with Samir.

When I first started in on my web design career, I thought that the programs
used were probably similar to the graphic design programs I was used to...
when I first started looking at different programs I was really disappointed
by what I found for choices. The more programs I tried the more restricted I
began to feel. Not only were all the programs about the same, but some were
absolutely terrible writing code to the point where I'd have to trouble
shoot the code in many pages by hand.

The day I discovered Fusion it was like an epiphany! Fusion was exactly what
I had imagined when I first thought of web design software. That first day
that I installed and then opened the program it totally blew me away... I
was glad I was sitting down at the computer because as it was, I practically
fell out of my chair. My mind started racing over all the things that were
now possible in web design... and to tell the truth my mind hasn't stopped
racing about new and ever changing uses of Fusion since. Not only did Fusion
give me the tool that I had been longing for... it also gave me oceans of
extra confidence in my work and abilities. It's not very often a product can
really make a profound change in your career and your life, but Fusion did
all of that and more for me. Before Fusion I found that I was always asking
myself "if" it was possible to do something with the software I was using,
but with Fusion that "if" turned into a "how"... that may sound like a
simple thing... but if you really think about it... it was like there was
a huge chunk of confidence that was installed in me that same day Fusion was
installed in my computer. Because of that change the ripples from it
continue to this day... my clients see it in me... they see it in the
sites I create for them, and that in turn gives them confidence in their
online presence.

I hope that there's a future for Fusion and that some day NetObjects might
return, until then good luck to you and all the wonderful people that made
Fusion the fantastic product that it is. I hope the NetObjects folks and the
users can stay in touch and keep things going until better times come along.

Fare thee well Samir!

Ransom

"Samir Arora /:-)" <s...@netobjects.com> wrote in message
news:3B96A248...@netobjects.com...
>

[Rick Faircloth]

Thanks, Samir and NetObjects staff for a great program and your help. I've
been a user since version 3 and have loved it ever since. (Even with
version 5...)

Like other before me have said, it's been the one program that has made
complex design simple. I've been integrating Cold Fusion programming into
my sites the last couple of years and just hate the thought of having to go
to Dreamweaver UltraDev for CF work!

May God bless you, the NetObjects staff, and your families in the future...

Hopefully, we'll meet you in a forum for the new, resurrected "Fusion MX."
BTW, MX is fast and efficient. I wish this version had come after version 4
; )

Take care,

Rick

Rick Faircloth,
Prism Productions,
Hinesville, GA

"Ransom [TNO]" <Ran...@darkstardesigns.com> wrote in message
news:9n7q69$re...@news.netobjects.com...