How big is the Affinity team?

[Steven123]

Hi, just a quick question, sorry for posting it in this forum, couldn't find a more appropriate one

 

I am really loving getting to grips with Affinity software, and am looking forward to the 1.7 release.

 

I was just wondering how big the development team behind the scenes is?

 

all the best

 

Steven

[Mithferion]

They are around a dozen of people.

Best regards!

[Steven123]

That's a small team for taking on the Photoshop behemoth, Respect!

Puts it all into perspective

To me they come across as a massive company with endless resources

[jmwellborn]

5 hours ago, Steven123 said:

That's a small team for taking on the Photoshop behemoth, Respect!

Puts it all into perspective

To me they come across as a massive company with endless resources

To me they are an incredibly impressive company with massive brains and endless efforts to achieve excellence.   

[Fixx]

5 hours ago, Steven123 said:

That's a small team for taking on the Photoshop behemoth, Respect!

not to mention titans like Illustrator and InDesign.

[.: NICKY G. :.]

2 minutes ago, Fixx said:

not to mention titans like Illustrator and InDesign.

Titanic's Illustrator is only years old (30).
Affinity has many shortcomings compared to illustrator, but as the software is now if they developed, they added the right things to AD according to my opinion will be better than AI.
For now it still has painful notes, but it is much faster, leaner and more functional than AI.

[Granddaddy]

On 5/25/2019 at 5:42 AM, Steven123 said:

I was just wondering how big the development team behind the scenes is?

 

On 5/25/2019 at 5:50 AM, Mithferion said:

They are around a dozen of people.

I have always loved the fervor and responsiveness of small software companies. It was exciting in the early days to call PC-Write and have the phone answered by Bob Wallace himself. Unfortunately the small shops could not survive the rapid development of technology and fell out of business despite their innovative ideas and personal service.

Affinity is trying to develop simultaneously multiple applications on multiple platforms while competing against established giants. Affinity's competitive advantages include an editing model that appeals to many and marketing errors by the behemoths. 

The stumbling rollout of AP 1.7 with the destruction of user data (dismissed as minor because it is "just" customizations), the native afphoto files increasing in size by a factor of 4 to 10 times, and the admission that the beta process allowed reported bugs to "fall through the net" during a year of testing would be troubling in a large company. Microsoft has committed the same errors and inflicted real disasters on users. But Microsoft is large enough to weather the storm and to rely on being the foundation of desktop computing (yes, I know several percent of desktop users are on Macs)., 

I'm thinking that the ties that bind customers to a company can be tenuous indeed. I abandoned Photoshop Elements when I "upgraded" from version 10 to version 14 and found the Clouds filter had been removed two versions earlier. I'm guessing Adobe considered this to be a very minor feature. I found very few complaints about this removal in the forums. But my experience is that customers don't complain, they just shop elsewhere. I was delighted to find that the Perlin Noise filter in AP could produce a similar effect despite it's seriously deficient implementation when compared to PE's Clouds.  

I was expecting Affinity to respond within hours to the reports of afphoto files being 10 times larger in version 1.7 as compared to version 1.6. At least I'd like to know if it is a bug that will be fixed or a feature that is permanent. But four days after Affinity reps said they'd get back to us there is no explanation. This gives the impression that the small staff is overwhelmed by version 1.7 rollout problems.

As an old, amateur, retired guy I can afford to be patient. Those in production shops might be less forgiving.

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

But four days after Affinity reps said they'd get back to us there is no explanation. This gives the impression that the small staff is overwhelmed by version 1.7 rollout problems.

Personally, I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to reply in the four days since the 1.7 apps went live, particularly considering that a weekend was involved, & that since then there have been a huge number of reports about various issues to sort through, many of them having nothing to do with bugs (like user confusion about how to update, where to find the new features & how to use them, etc.).

Consider also that six products were just updated (2 each for Windows, Macs, & iPads), that two more (Publisher for Mac & Windows) are scheduled for their first retail releases in a few days, that they are trying to support a total of at least a dozen different existing & soon to be updated OS versions, & an ever growing number of different hardware configurations. Moreover, they are trying to do all this while simultaneously minimizing the disruption to existing user workflows.

That's a monumental challenge even for the industry giants, & they don't exactly have a sterling track record in that respect either.

So while I don't know what other customers are expecting, they have already far exceeding my own expectations & in no way have made me even briefly consider abandoning their products.

[jmwellborn]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Personally, I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to reply in the four days since the 1.7 apps went live . . .

So while I don't know what other customers are expecting, they have already far exceeding my own expectations & in no way have made me even briefly consider abandoning their products.

Thank you, R-C-R!!  Totally agree with you.  Glancing through the howls of anguish on the forums, it looks as though many of the initial “problems” have something to do with the customers’ hardware, preference settings, or customer confusion over where to go — site, store — to download their updates.  I think The Affinity staff have been indefatigable in their efforts to get everybody up and running.  I was one of many lucky ones without “metal” etc. issues.  My Designer and Photo downloaded impeccably in a matter of a minute or two.  (Good old MAC Sierra, I might add.)

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

(Good old MAC Sierra, I might add.)

 If you include that information in your forum signature, it will be appended automagically to every post so you won’t need to add it manually.

[jmwellborn]

Just now, Alfred said:

 If you include that information in your forum signature, it will be appended automagically to every post so you won’t need to add it manually.

Right you are.  One of these days I will root out the details on my invoice, and add them in all their glory.  For the nonce, I am being slothful.  

[Wolfgang Kynast]

On 5/25/2019 at 11:42 AM, Steven123 said:

I was just wondering how big the development team behind the scenes is?

Deep in my brain is the number of 100, but can't find it again. The company building https://www.google.de/maps/place/Serif+(Europe)+Ltd/@52.9169634,-1.1571404,124m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4879c256e65a8ded:0xb0f2405300d5654d!8m2!3d52.9168566!4d-1.1574671?hl=de

looks appropriate for this number to me

That would give

30 for Photo

30 for Designer

30 for Publisher

10 for company management

sounds reasonable to me.

Update:  https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/serif states  "Number of Employees 101-250"

Best regards

Wolfgang

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Wolfgang Kynast

[Alfred]

17 minutes ago, Wolfgang Kynast said:

Update:  https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/serif states  "Number of Employees 101-250"

That’s the number of employees, not the number of development staff.

[Wolfgang Kynast]

13 minutes ago, Alfred said:

That’s the number of employees, not the number of development staff.

Sure. And 60 of them beeing developers (for 3 big products) sounds reasonable to me as a retired software engineer.

I do not believe the "dozen people".

[Patrick Connor]

54 minutes ago, Wolfgang Kynast said:

I do not believe the "dozen people"

Quite right, it's a few more, but it's less than 20 Affinity software developers.

[Granddaddy]

Thanks to @Wolfgang Kynast for posting the Google Maps link to the Serif building in the Wilford Industrial Estate in Nottingham. Google's Street View camera drove right into the Serif parking lot when the warehouse door was open in order to turn around on the dead end street. (You have to pull in all the way to see the open door. In all approach images the door is closed.)

As a frugal person myself, I have to commend Serif for its frugality. No doubt that frugality is what just made it possible for me to pre-order Affinity Publisher at a 20% discount from the already remarkably low price.

Here in the States, even small software companies are housed in modern glass, brick, and steel buildings in landscaped office parks that may include picnic areas, skateboard structures, volleyball courts, and stylish cafeterias. Larger companies are housed on luxurious campuses. In contrast, Serif's building  is a small, two-story shell building on a poorly paved, dead end street in a crowded, almost treeless, light industrial area right next to the railroad tracks. The only visible employee amenities are parking spaces for cars and a shelter for bicycles. Serif's building reminds me of small manufacturing facilities I've seen in third world countries, minus the high walls and concertina wire, of course.

There is a small grassy area with a couple of trees and three picnic tables almost across the street from Serif. On the street by that grassy area there is what appears to be a small, trailer-mounted lunch stand in what I think is Elizabethan style. It is powered by a very, very long extension cord. A man is standing there talking to the proprietor in the Google imagery dated March 2019. (And isn't it amazing what you can learn on the Web just 30 years after Tim Berners-Lee invented it?)

Joking aside, I'm impressed by the dedication to purpose and the avoidance of the frills that drive up costs in the U. S. I'm also impressed by the lack of Porsches, BMWs, and Lamborghinis in the parking lot, the kinds of cars that American software types like to show off. 

[Friksel]

5 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

Are they building an new floor on top for the Publisher crew? 

[Gnobelix]

29 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Are they building an new floor on top for the Publisher crew? 

I  think so, Photo, Designer and Publisher, one floor each

[jmwellborn]

On 6/10/2019 at 11:54 AM, Alfred said:

 If you include that information in your forum signature, it will be appended automagically to every post so you won’t need to add it manually.

All the gory details should now be below.  The "automagic" sloth looked them up.

[jmwellborn]

1 hour ago, Granddaddy said:

Here in the States, even small software companies are housed in modern glass, brick, and steel buildings in landscaped office parks that may include picnic areas, skateboard structures, volleyball courts, and stylish cafeterias. Larger companies are housed on luxurious campuses. In contrast, Serif's building  is a small, two-story shell building on a poorly paved, dead end street in a crowded, almost treeless, light industrial area right next to the railroad tracks. The only visible employee amenities are parking spaces for cars and a shelter for bicycles. Serif's building reminds me of small manufacturing facilities I've seen in third world countries, minus the high walls and concertina wire, of course.

I'm also impressed by the lack of Porsches, BMWs, and Lamborghinis in the parking lot, the kinds of cars that American software types like to show off. 

"All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life has sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold; Had you been as wise as bold. . ."   William Shakespeare.  Two guesses how many of your handy-dandy "small software companies ... housed in modern glass, brick, and steel buildings .... and driving Porsches, BMWs and Lamborghinis " are probably employing umpty-ump low-wage, vaguely skilled programmers from third-world countries to do their programming and subsequently charging $90.00 an hour or so to fix any and everything that doesn't work.  And probably still won't work after "Susie" or "Steve" from  (fill in the blank) has finished explaining it all in vague terms.  I will take Serif any day of the week and twice on Sundays.   They don't even need "Epic Skies" for this photograph.   Plenty of nice clouds. 

[Alfred]

21 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

All the gory details should now be below.  The "automagic" sloth looked them up.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

I'm also impressed by the lack of Porsches, BMWs, and Lamborghinis in the parking lot, the kinds of cars that American software types like to show off. 

But if I am not mistaken, there is one very sleek looking Maserati in the lot (car park?), so at least someone there appreciates more than just high performance software. 

[Chris B]

Don't judge a book by its cover  
https://affinityspotlight.com/article/affinity-live-our-very-first-live-event/

[jmwellborn]

3 hours ago, Chris B said:

Don't judge a book by its cover  
https://affinityspotlight.com/article/affinity-live-our-very-first-live-event/

Looks like a wonderful place to work!!