Roadmap for 2011
A bit more than 1 year ago, we published our 2010 roadmap, and it’s now time to renew this document for 2011.
Before diving into the 2011 roadmap, let’s note that most items announced back in 2009 have been implemented according to plan. The only major divergence was the Forecast Studio (desktop app) which was never implemented in favor of Salescast. Yet, considering the very positive feedback we did get enabling a full-web approach with Salescast, it was the right decision to ditch the desktop app for a better approach.
Although we do our best to accurately reflect our intents in this document, the following roadmap is subject to change. We realize that neither carving our path in stone nor shifting targets every week are satisfying for clients as well as partners. We will to our best to adjust our developments based on your feedback.
Forecasting Technology
Forecasting accuracy remains the foremost priority of Lokad. There is still no definitive technological answer to statistical forecasting. This item remains the No1 priority of our ongoing research and development efforts. We have now a 100% cloud-powered forecasting technology, but this is only the beginning. Cloud computing offers possibilities that we could not explore before. We will leverage those possibilities in 2011.
Then, forecasts refinement through weather data remains an important direction of our long term developments. So far, we have only carried out a few promising experiments. Nevertheless, this is a complex piece of technology and it’s unlikely we release weather-aware forecasts in 2011.
Pricing
The Lokad pricing hasn’t changed since November 2009; and we don’t expected any change for 2011 apart from minor adjustments that would result from currency variations.
Vertical apps
Salescast, web app dedicated to sales forecasting, will remain our flagship integration app as far inventory optimization in concerned. Our primary goal is to make Salescast even smoother and more reliable, so that Lokad becomes an invisible - and yet highly valuable - aspect of your supply chain processes. Also, for Q2 2011, we will add Excel import to Salescast.
For staffing optimization, we will release shortly CallCalc, the email-based successor of our existing Call Center Calculator (desktop app). In short, you will be able to send an Excel spreadsheet by email, and CallCalc will return you, by email, the forecasts, also in Excel.
Tooling
Our Forecasting API benefits from .NET and Java open source SDKs. Although there is not much to add feature-wise, those SDKs will receive proper maintenance in 2011. We might consider adding PHP and Python ports in the second half of 2011.
Our open source contributions have grown to 8 projects. We plan to actively keep up with the development of Lokad.Cloud and Lokad.CQRS during 2011 as those two packages are essential to both our existing and future technologies. Other projects may receive further development efforts on a need-basis.
Internationalization
We have now 5 languages offered on Lokad.com, although some sections are still lagging behind. For 2011, our goal is to get all languages up to date with the primary English version with 6 weeks. Then, Japanese and Italian should made their entry in the list of supported languages.
This roadmap isn’t carved in stone. Don’t hesitate to post your feedback.
