HarrisonConsoles MixBus DAW *No Free Trial * No Refunds*

[Fantashable]

Harrison-Console's MixBus may be known to the SOS readership through the review of MixBus version 3 in September's edition by John Walden, and a review of a previous version in SOS some years back.

John mentioned that Harrison's do NOT provide a free evaluation trial to enable potential users to try the software before purchase.

However, what John didn't mention - probably because Harrison Consoles failed to tell him - is that they do NOT provide refunds to users either, in the event that MixBus doesn't meet their needs. They certainly didn't tell me.

Harrison-Consoles apply all kinds of rhetoric such as ... "we take our customers very seriously and try very hard to make them happy - just don't ask us for a refund that's all, because a refusal often offends" ... or words to that effect !

One could understand not providing a refund where a full time-limited trial of the DAW is on offer, which most vendors provide, but Harrison's won't provide either.
These policies might not align with the rest of the industry, not to mention consumer law.

Harrison-Consoles state that they have no way to cancel licenses so they can't give refunds. So that's a tough-luck chum.

Although I discovered only after purchase that MixBus 3 doesn't meet my own needs because the GUI is far too small even after I zoomed parts of the GUI and Mixer, I hope that this post will be seen only as a 'Heads-Up' and NOT just another rant from a rather disenchanted MixBus purchaser.

Always read the small print, unless like me your eyes are dim and struggle to see without specs, and then some.

Back to Cubase professional - thankfully

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

There was a long thread on this fairly recently if you want to do a search. There are quite a few grumpy ex-mixbus buyers on the forum, yours truly being one of them. Terrible product, terrible support. YMMV.

[Fantashable]

There was a long thread on this fairly recently if you want to do a search. There are quite a few grumpy ex-mixbus buyers on the forum, yours truly being one of them. Terrible product, terrible support. YMMV.

Sorry to learn that you - and apparrently many others - have been burnt by Harrison-Consoles.

Did YOU ask for a refund too?

Could you give me more on that thread, please? I made a search but yet to find other unhappy members thus far. Can you recall when? and which Section did it appear in ?

[ConcertinaChap]

The thread is here. As you will see HJ's experiences, helpfully detailed, sufficed to stop me wasting time on the product.

CC

[Fantashable]

The thread is here. As you will see HJ's experiences, helpfully detailed, sufficed to stop me wasting time on the product.

CC

Thank you CC. I wasn't looking in Mac Music, because I am PC based.

Nevertheless, the cost of MixBus 18 Months ago was a small amount to lose if the user couldn't get it to suit their needs, compared to $93 including tax, now.

My main complaint is not with the product itself - although that too is shabby - but Harrison's shabby ethics. Don't ask them for a refund, they wont give you one.

I wonder if other MixBus users - past or present - have requested a refund?

[Dave Rowles]

With recent changes to UK law, they might have to provide a refund.

see http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/problem/can-i-get-a-r... for more info.

If this doesn't work you could try distance selling regulations as long as you haven't had the product more than 14 days.

[SimonZ]

Harrison do seem to have shot themselves firmly in the feet with the refund policy and the somewhat buggy release of Mixbus3.

It's a real shame because the mixing workflow and the sound are something special.
In the short time I have tried it I just seem to get better sounding results in much less time.

Although there are still lots of things about Mixbus that need to change, I won't be mixing on anything else from now on.

Hard to quantify........
Mixbus, press play, Music fills the room.
Switch back to Cubase or Reaper, press play, some sound comes out of the speakers.
I was very surprised the first time I did this, It was like 'what just happened ? did something break ?'

I am lucky to have it all working nice and stable on my system.

Can't disagree with the above posts though, Harrison probably have made more enemies than friends this time around.

[Richie Royale]

I bought Mixbus for a paltry sum and subsequently haven't used it. I tried it a couple of times but didn't get on with it at first blush, so stuck with Cubase.

I have some tracks to mix, so perhaps I shall give it another go.

[Fantashable]

With recent changes to UK law, they might have to provide a refund.

see http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/problem/can-i-get-a-r... for more info.

If this doesn't work you could try distance selling regulations as long as you haven't had the product more than 14 days.

Harrison's aren't concerned with UK consumer rights I'd wager, and I'd doubt that US consumer rights would bother them either - unless their policies were tested in law

An added difficulty here is that the product is intangible.

[Fantashable]

Harrison do seem to have shot themselves firmly in the feet with the refund policy and the somewhat buggy release of Mixbus3.

It's a real shame because the mixing workflow and the sound are something special.
In the short time I have tried it I just seem to get better sounding results in much less time.

Although there are still lots of things about Mixbus that need to change, I won't be mixing on anything else from now on.

Hard to quantify........
Mixbus, press play, Music fills the room.
Switch back to Cubase or Reaper, press play, some sound comes out of the speakers.
I was very surprised the first time I did this, It was like 'what just happened ? did something break ?'

I am lucky to have it all working nice and stable on my system.

Can't disagree with the above posts though, Harrison probably have made more enemies than friends this time around.

Yes, I agree; there is something about the sound MixBus3 generates - a warmth and shimmer to the mix.

That said, any number of analogue mix and tape emulation plug-ins from the likes of Waves and UAD can warm-up nicely too, and Slate Digital's console strip and mix-bus emulations are praised in SOS for doing just that. And these vendors will most likely have a grown-up customer care policy - unlike those of Harrison/MixBus.

My advice is don't fall into Harrison's trap, unless they can honestly promise they will provide a refund ... they certainly won't refund me ... Grrrrrrrrr

[SimonZ]

That said, any number of analogue mix and tape emulation plug-ins from the likes of Waves and UAD can warm-up nicely too, and Slate Digital's console strip and mix-bus emulations are praised in SOS for doing just that.

That's the thing, my comparison mix in Reaper had plenty of Slate VCC, VTM and UAD plugs all over the place .... still just sounds drab when compared though.

Aside from the sound, I understand your Grrrrrr factor, not a good situation.

[BVDL]

Hi,

My experience is that you have to spend some time with it to get your head around it, in order to get it functioning as it is supposed to. If you read on their forum you'll find out a lot of problems were reported by users, and already taken care of by the support team. They frequently release temporary updates that fix certain problems that people reported about. By now it's running pretty stable, reacts a lot quicker, just starts to work really well. They may be wrong about their non refund policy, but they certainly care a lot about quality... as they try very hard to support their customers with quick and helpful replies. The original release of version 3 had a lot of quirks, but as for now it's a joy to use on my Win 8.1 and 7 systems. There are still some things that can be improved like for example;

The way mono channels use 3rd party plugins, they tend to output dual mono instead of just mono.
They are working on this, although it's not a very big deal for me at the moment but still...

If you want more than 8 mixbusses you need to setup a so called "utility buss" that doesn't automatically compensate delay's imparted by plugins.

They want to keep this limitation as it is marketed towards professional grade, but budget category. If you want to, it's manageble to work around this, but I don't like the idea.

Other than that I'm certainly a happy user! I don't think it's supposed to be compared to your typical other DAW, to me it works in a total different way. I was dreaming for years of a DAW that would be intuitive to use with one knob per function (no channelstrip plugins, just one console on a seperate window that's always open), and now I have it.
It also sounds very well to me, it works for me, it absolutely outweighs the efford I had to put into it to learn and understand to use it. That includes reading the forum and trying a new "interim release" as they call it, reporting problems...
I hope people get to appreciate what it can do for them as Mixbuss's last juvenile deseases get cured, I think Harrison deserves a little recognition about their product and effords.
They could easily ask a lot more $ if you compare to many single plugins that do a hell of a lot less for a hell of a lot more. No refund... I understand people get turned off by that.

Peace,

Benny.

[BVDL]

I forgot to mention that to me, console and tape emulations are just redundant by using MB.
For example Slate VCC = 149$... Slate VTM = 149$, Brainworx bx_console 299$ although I don't want to suggest one or the other is actually better... but for me ("bedroom producer") those figures are silly amounts of money.
You can easily spend 300$ just because you think you need analogueness in your "sterile" (not my words) DAW.

I really like it a lot.

[lowen]

Harrison-Console's MixBus may be known to the SOS readership through the review of MixBus version 3 in September's edition by John Walden, and a review of a previous version in SOS some years back.

It was an excellent review, too, quite balanced in my opinion. While it is my opinion that Mixbus is great, like all other software it is not perfect.

John mentioned that Harrison's do NOT provide a free evaluation trial to enable potential users to try the software before purchase.

Harrison also does not lock you to an activation that you have to reactivate if you ever move it, nor does Harrison limit the number of copies you have installed on different machines (it's licensed per-user), nor is there a hardware key required to use it, nor does it have any of the other locks and such that many other professional audio software packages use. Celemony Melodyne, for instance, which I own but leave deactivated until I need to use it, only gets 2 activations, and it is locked to the PC on which it is installed; if that PC dies, you have lost that activation! Lose both activations and you have to purchase the software again (at least that was the case when I purchased Melodyne Studion a few years back). You do have the option of using iLok; lose the iLok and you have to purchase another license.

If you do lose the license files for Mixbus Harrison will send you links to another license file (as long as they have it on record that you have that license), no questions asked (been there, did that). The software is fully functional unlicensed; it just adds some noise in the DSP.

However, what John didn't mention - probably because Harrison Consoles failed to tell him - is that they do NOT provide refunds to users either, in the event that MixBus doesn't meet their needs. They certainly didn't tell me.

I'm trying to think of the last time I purchased professional audio software that actually had an explicit refund.... hmmm, I'm coming up empty. Most stores I've shopped at won't give you a refund for a physical piece of software if you have opened it (I found that out when originally purchasing Adobe Audition 1.5 years ago as an upgrade to CEP; no refund, period, and exchanges only if the media was physically defective.).

I don't recall the option of getting a free trial or the ability to get a refund when I dropped $500 on Melodyne Studio. Of course, I didn't look for a refund, either, so I might have just missed it in the fine print. I don't expect refunds on software; never have.

I don't remember if my original purchase of Mixbus 1.0 several years back mentioned refunds or not. I do know this: I don't think I can remember a commercial product with as responsive of a support system as Harrison's. In my opinion, of course. I even went as far as buying a Mac so I could run Mixbus, at least until it became available on Linux, at which point I loaded it on my main Linux workstation and kept on going. The sound, in my opinion of course, is just that good.

Sure, there have been (and will continue to be) bugs and issues, and I'm ok with that, since software for which I paid a whole lot more than I paid for Mixbus has those (Celemony Melodyne Studio, for instance). The price was good, and the sound is great. I have used Mixbus weekly to produce a radio broadcast for several years, now (since MB 1.0 days, in fact), and I have produced several music cuts and an album with it, over the years. I'm rather used to its interface and even its quirks by now, and they're not a big deal.

I'm still getting used to some of the changes in MB3, but so far some of the new features have balanced out some of the differences. Harrison's interim releases (currently available to Harrison's Mixbus forum members) are getting better and better, and, well, everything except the DSP code is open source and you can watch the bugfixes and enhancements commit (and even compile it yourself if you so desire).

Mixbus, to me, brings the analog mixing desk to in the box mixing; and this is Mixbus' strength. It is not nor will it be everyone's DAW, but for my uses it has so far been a very good fit. The Harrison plugins, although extra cost, are well worth it, as well. In particular the Vocal Character and Bass Character plugins are two I use often.

I still use the Mac for a few things (and I have MB2.5 loaded there, along with several AudioFile Engineering programs, iZotope plugins (Ozone, Alloy, Spectron) and Melodyne) but the Linux box gets more use in most production.

Most of my mixing doesn't even need extra plugins, with the singular exception of GVerb for the reverb (although I have used an Alesis MIDIVerb before as an insert (thanks to the awesome JACK audio interconnect layer and an MAudio Delta 1010) for a particular effect).

But, your mileage may vary; if you prefer something else, by all means enjoy using it. I'll just go about my merry way being productive doing my weekly production tasks on Mixbus.

[Fantashable]

Harrison-Console's MixBus may be known to the SOS readership through the review of MixBus version 3 in September's edition by John Walden, and a review of a previous version in SOS some years back.

It was an excellent review, too, quite balanced in my opinion. While it is my opinion that Mixbus is great, like all other software it is not perfect.

John mentioned that Harrison's do NOT provide a free evaluation trial to enable potential users to try the software before purchase.

Harrison also does not lock you to an activation that you have to reactivate if you ever move it, nor does Harrison limit the number of copies you have installed on different machines (it's licensed per-user), nor is there a hardware key required to use it, nor does it have any of the other locks and such that many other professional audio software packages use. Celemony Melodyne, for instance, which I own but leave deactivated until I need to use it, only gets 2 activations, and it is locked to the PC on which it is installed; if that PC dies, you have lost that activation! Lose both activations and you have to purchase the software again (at least that was the case when I purchased Melodyne Studion a few years back). You do have the option of using iLok; lose the iLok and you have to purchase another license.

If you do lose the license files for Mixbus Harrison will send you links to another license file (as long as they have it on record that you have that license), no questions asked (been there, did that). The software is fully functional unlicensed; it just adds some noise in the DSP.

However, what John didn't mention - probably because Harrison Consoles failed to tell him - is that they do NOT provide refunds to users either, in the event that MixBus doesn't meet their needs. They certainly didn't tell me.

I'm trying to think of the last time I purchased professional audio software that actually had an explicit refund.... hmmm, I'm coming up empty. Most stores I've shopped at won't give you a refund for a physical piece of software if you have opened it (I found that out when originally purchasing Adobe Audition 1.5 years ago as an upgrade to CEP; no refund, period, and exchanges only if the media was physically defective.).

I don't recall the option of getting a free trial or the ability to get a refund when I dropped 00 on Melodyne Studio. Of course, I didn't look for a refund, either, so I might have just missed it in the fine print. I don't expect refunds on software; never have.

I don't remember if my original purchase of Mixbus 1.0 several years back mentioned refunds or not. I do know this: I don't think I can remember a commercial product with as responsive of a support system as Harrison's. In my opinion, of course. I even went as far as buying a Mac so I could run Mixbus, at least until it became available on Linux, at which point I loaded it on my main Linux workstation and kept on going. The sound, in my opinion of course, is just that good.

Sure, there have been (and will continue to be) bugs and issues, and I'm ok with that, since software for which I paid a whole lot more than I paid for Mixbus has those (Celemony Melodyne Studio, for instance). The price was good, and the sound is great. I have used Mixbus weekly to produce a radio broadcast for several years, now (since MB 1.0 days, in fact), and I have produced several music cuts and an album with it, over the years. I'm rather used to its interface and even its quirks by now, and they're not a big deal.

I'm still getting used to some of the changes in MB3, but so far some of the new features have balanced out some of the differences. Harrison's interim releases (currently available to Harrison's Mixbus forum members) are getting better and better, and, well, everything except the DSP code is open source and you can watch the bugfixes and enhancements commit (and even compile it yourself if you so desire).

Mixbus, to me, brings the analog mixing desk to in the box mixing; and this is Mixbus' strength. It is not nor will it be everyone's DAW, but for my uses it has so far been a very good fit. The Harrison plugins, although extra cost, are well worth it, as well. In particular the Vocal Character and Bass Character plugins are two I use often.

I still use the Mac for a few things (and I have MB2.5 loaded there, along with several AudioFile Engineering programs, iZotope plugins (Ozone, Alloy, Spectron) and Melodyne) but the Linux box gets more use in most production.

Most of my mixing doesn't even need extra plugins, with the singular exception of GVerb for the reverb (although I have used an Alesis MIDIVerb before as an insert (thanks to the awesome JACK audio interconnect layer and an MAudio Delta 1010) for a particular effect).

But, your mileage may vary; if you prefer something else, by all means enjoy using it. I'll just go about my merry way being productive doing my weekly production tasks on Mixbus.

The finger of suspicion points to you: How long have you worked for Harrison Consoles may we know ?

[Fantashable]

This Topic isn't just about Refunds (or lack of them) it is entirely about a business that markets a DAW, doesn't provide a Free Trial period, and, in the absence of a trial, doesn't provide a refund when the user is dissatisfied with its product.

Harrison'e are the target here for those very reasons.

[Fantashable]

Claims by some that software developers don't provide demo/trial versions of their products, I list here below some of the most Popular Digital Audio WorkStations in use today and are currently available for a free 30-day trial:

1. Steinberg Cubase 8 and its siblings

2. Avid Protools

3. Propellerhead Reason

4. Cakewalk Sonar

5. Ableton Live

6. Motu Digital Performer

7. Presonus Studio One

* Apple do not provide a free trial of Logic - but then, Apple are a law unto themselves and probably don't conform to popular demand anyway for any of their products

[Dave B]

Fantashable, you are being quite rude here. Other people who do not share your views are not automatically company drones. You are out of line and should apologise.

You initially criticised the company and their attitude to their customers. Others have expressed a different opinion and feel that Harrison DO look after their user base. It's always good to get a balance and we are awaiting others to back up your position. Time will tell (it always does).

As for the trial period, you could easily have tested the functionality of the main software by looking at the Ardour version that it is based on and testing that for free. Harrison make no bones about them simply black boxing the plugins and leaving most of the code free. For a main player to work inside the open source community this was is quite impressive in itself - try suggesting that to Steinberg and see where it gets you (probably banned from their forums).

Also, before spending your hard earned, you could have perused their forums and asked questions as a potential customer - or done that here. Is it Harrison's fault that you didn't? It is SOS's fault? No ... time to man up and take it on the chin here.

Mixbus is a certain kind of software for a certain kind of use. It's not the be-all and end-all as some DAWs try to be. I've been interested in it for a while as sometimes Logic seems a bit much for just mixing audio. Some good has come out of this thread as, knowing that the support is good, I'm now strongly motivated to check it out. For the price, it's worth a punt and if I don't use it all the time, then that's fine for me.

Interesting analogy here : recently I went to get a chinese from a good local shop. Whilst I was waiting, a couple of girls came back, returned their whole order because 'they had miscounted and couldn't afford it' and wanted a refund. I was gobsmacked when the owners did so with no complaints or bad attitude of any kind. These girls had asked for their meal, the shop had cooked it, packaged it and sold it, yet these girls just automatically assumed that they could throw it back and get their money back. The shop hadn't done anything wrong and I felt so offended on their behalf that they were accommodating these awful people. I'm actually fine with Harrison not giving you your money back - sorry, but my sympathies are with them. Sadly, 'caveat emptor' is now being trumped by 'buyers remorse'.

[chris...]

Yep.

Are there many software manufactures that offer "refunds" ? I suspect not, but could be wrong.

Also, it's entirely up to the manufacture whether or not they offer a trial period.

At a guess, in this case, the lack of such may be somewhat related to the absence of heavy-weight copy-protection / licence enforcement, that while perhaps facilitating trials etc, is generally a PITA.

[Fantashable]

Fantashable, you are being quite rude here. Other people who do not share your views are not automatically company drones. You are out of line and should apologise.

You initially criticised the company and their attitude to their customers. Others have expressed a different opinion and feel that Harrison DO look after their user base. It's always good to get a balance and we are awaiting others to back up your position. Time will tell (it always does).

As for the trial period, you could easily have tested the functionality of the main software by looking at the Ardour version that it is based on and testing that for free. Harrison make no bones about them simply black boxing the plugins and leaving most of the code free. For a main player to work inside the open source community this was is quite impressive in itself - try suggesting that to Steinberg and see where it gets you (probably banned from their forums).

Also, before spending your hard earned, you could have perused their forums and asked questions as a potential customer - or done that here. Is it Harrison's fault that you didn't? It is SOS's fault? No ... time to man up and take it on the chin here.

Mixbus is a certain kind of software for a certain kind of use. It's not the be-all and end-all as some DAWs try to be. I've been interested in it for a while as sometimes Logic seems a bit much for just mixing audio. Some good has come out of this thread as, knowing that the support is good, I'm now strongly motivated to check it out. For the price, it's worth a punt and if I don't use it all the time, then that's fine for me.

Interesting analogy here : recently I went to get a chinese from a good local shop. Whilst I was waiting, a couple of girls came back, returned their whole order because 'they had miscounted and couldn't afford it' and wanted a refund. I was gobsmacked when the owners did so with no complaints or bad attitude of any kind. These girls had asked for their meal, the shop had cooked it, packaged it and sold it, yet these girls just automatically assumed that they could throw it back and get their money back. The shop hadn't done anything wrong and I felt so offended on their behalf that they were accommodating these awful people. I'm actually fine with Harrison not giving you your money back - sorry, but my sympathies are with them. Sadly, 'caveat emptor' is now being trumped by 'buyers remorse'.

I made an assumption - not based on bigotry but on observance of the tricks sometimes used on other Forums and not limited to the field of music technology.

Rudeness was not what I intended - just a point-of-a-finger of suspicion. I was suspicious and I've yet to change my mind on that.

The fact that almost all publishers of professional audio workstations provide a 30-day trial is still relevant here, and in context, offering refunds would be silly.

In my view - and this is how I came to the point that I could not work with MixBus 3 - as a DAW it falls far short of what I expect from the competition; and, I singled-out the GUI for special consideration. Only after that did I consider requesting a refund. I need professional tools to get my clients projects completed quickly.

I respect your opinion of MixBus, and I have mine. Your opinion of me worries me a little, however. You make the assumption perhaps that I had no reason to expect a refund. I find that offensive, and that notion is quite wrong.

[Fantashable]

Yep.

Are there many software manufactures that offer "refunds" ? I suspect not, but could be wrong.

Also, it's entirely up to the manufacture whether or not they offer a trial period.

At a guess, in this case, the lack of such may be somewhat related to the absence of heavy-weight copy-protection / licence enforcement, that while perhaps facilitating trials etc, is generally a PITA.

No, very likely they do not offer refunds. But they don't need to because big players in the industry want desperately for us to 'jump ship' to their platform - and this is where the Free Trial is an advantage perhaps even crucial; and couple that with a Cross-Grade package to temp further still.

[Dave B]

I must be as stupid as the offspring of a village idiot and a TV weather girl here, but I still don't understand why you think that you are entitled to a refund?

Software is sold 'as is' - that's been the case from day one and probably always will be. You will have accepted an EULA somewhere (either explicitly on install or at download time or implicitly by purchasing the software) accepting this. The version that you initially received may well have had issues but it sounds like other users are seeing these addressed quite rapidly. So the manufacturer seems to be working quite hard to look after their customers - something that you seem to disagree with - no?

Did Harrison misrepresent their software? Did they tell you it was a 30 day trail version? Did they tell you that you could have a refund if you were not completely happy with it? Was it mis-sold and found to be not suitable for purpose? If so, then yes, you are legally entitled to a full refund under UK consumer law and distance selling regs (iirc).

But your post indicates that you find elements of the UI too small for your taste. That's not a huge failing and I would be quite surprised if that was enough to justify a refund. (If it were, then quite a few Logic users could demand their cash back. But they didn't)

So what am I missing? Please - do correct me here. How else do we learn if not from our mistakes.

From your posts, this all comes across (possibly wrongly) as simple 'buyers remorse'. If that's the case, then, as I said, my sympathies are with the manufacturer here (having been on the end of that myself - albeit in a minor way). If Harrison have somehow been duplicitous or under-handed, then please clarify so that we can share your outrage.

[Overmann]

I have been using Mixbus for a couple of weeks now and I really like it. I, like you was concerned that there was no trail so I asked on their forums, and within an hour got a reply by someone at Harrison apologising for the lack of an evalutaion-version while stating their reasons for not having one.

The fact that I got an instant reply is kind of incredible, concidering how long I waited for help when my copy of ProTools 8 kept crashing every 10 minutes for two years.

First I gave Ardour a try and when I was happy that it would do what I needed it to I downloaded a copy of Mixbus 3 (in a non-honest way, Im sorry to say). I was really impressed with it. And for the price I saw absolutely no reason not to buy it.

Since then I have had problems here and there, but Harrison keeps on addressing them and responding on the forums. Mixbus is quite different from what I am used to (ProTools) and I'm still learning new tricks but It does everything I need a DAW to do, and it does it quickly and efficiently. I'm very happy with the DAW and I also think it's great fun to be part of a community where there is an actual dialogue between the users and the developers. It really seems like they care about what people think. During my 10 years with ProTools I never got that impression from Digidesign/AVID.

EDIT: And I am not affiliated with Harrison either. I've been a longtime non-registered lurker here, and this thread made me register. I just had to say something.

[Bob Bickerton]

This thread says more about Fantashable's purchase research prowess than it does about the product he's moaning about.

Unless Harrison have breached an advertised condition of purchase then this is all to do with you making the wrong decision.

I would never expect a refund on a software purchase period.

If there's no trial period, which is clearly evident by the lack of a trial download, there's no grounds for complaint.

A more assertive post noting why you didn't like the purchase you made would carry more credence.

Bob

[Studio Support Gnome]

never mind all that, thinking that there ARE any "Big Players" "in the audio software industry is woefully naive.

none of them have an army of software engineers at their disposal any more….

no one can afford to …..