NextUp TextAloud stops World From Going Linux

[entryreqrd]

NextUp.com TextAloud stops World From Going Linux

NextUp.com TextAloud is the only critical program that I run that does not run under Linux.

FireFox for browsing and OpenOffice.org providing at no cost, the same or greater function then Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office.

I have not switched all of my computers over to Linix because NextUp TextAloud does not run on Linux currently.

NextUp provides applications that provide functions that are intergral with life in modern times.

The whole world is now waiting for NextUP to port to Linux so that they are not limited and chained to Microsoft.

When will NextUp support Linux?

[kdwhite]

Hi Paul. Almost looked like a press release at the start.
Going to linux is a HUGE task. Technically it looks like it would be possible, there are a few decent voices that would work there now. We build AbleReader, our Mac product with something that would make porting of it relatively easy, maybe 2 months work instead of a year, but that is with some pretty limitted functionality.

Personally, I'm still not sold on linux being a profitable platform for an app company. Do you know of many good examples of companies that are actually selling apps on linux? Most of my linux friends seem to be the types that don't pay for software.

[doug4117]

Try running, perhaps, Text Aloud under Wine?

[entryreqrd]

Hi Paul. Almost looked like a press release at the start.
Going to linux is a HUGE task. Technically it looks like it would be possible, there are a few decent voices that would work there now. We build AbleReader, our Mac product with something that would make porting of it relatively easy, maybe 2 months work instead of a year, but that is with some pretty limitted functionality.

Personally, I'm still not sold on linux being a profitable platform for an app company. Do you know of many good examples of companies that are actually selling apps on linux? Most of my linux friends seem to be the types that don't pay for software.

Ken,

There is a company called AT&T they have a product called Natural Voices it runs on MS Windows and Linux you should check it out. I run their Mike and Crystal voice under windows because my favorite TTS product, NEXTUP has not ported to LINUX yet.

There is another company called IBM they have a buttload of products running under Linux. Coral makes a neat product called WordPerfect.

Maybe you have heard of Sybase and Oracle they both sell database products that compete with IBMs DB2 which also sells on Linux platforms.

This is holy war kind of thing talking OS pluses and minuses.

I own your software now. I would purchase a new license of TextAloud if it ran under Linux. I thought I could throw up a poll question here when I get another free moment I will do so.
I am now requesting that everyone who reads this message that would consider running NextUp TextAloud under Linux to send a short email to sales@NextUp.com stating you would purchase a license to run Nextup under Linux.

Hopefully the NextUp mail server will crash and NextUp will start developing a Linux port tomorrow. I kind of doubt it but I am holding my thumbs (have my fingers crossed).

Unless it pays to port there is no point in porting to Linux. I agree with you Ken.

Ken you are the BEAN COUNTER and I am just one of your many happy customers that wants to go Linux on all of my computers in my home.

[doug4117]

Dude, there's no need to be offensive.

[D.Leikin]

Cool out, Doug. Paul was just kidding. Don’t worry about it.

Even if he weren’t the overall strength of the linux army wouldn’t be sufficient to initiate kind DoS attack for sure :wink:

[D.Leikin]

I seem to have got a half-serious suggestion re the linux race:

Why not start licensing future linux-based versions of TextAloud right away?
Indefinite time frame, huge discounts, pacified linux users, great start-up investments...

[kdwhite]

Don't think that every software company in the world hasn't thought about doing this type of thing. A couple of years ago I saw a company pre-sell a windows product that sounded great. It never made it out of beta before the company went bankrupt.

In seriousness, we had thought about pre-selling TextAloud 3.0 upgrades. But one of the core things we've always tried to do is make sure we never dissapoint anyone. I'd hate to go out touting features of TextAloud 3.0, sell it, then have to pull out some feature for the initial release because of some problem, and have a customer feel dissapointed in us.

So, unlike most sales people I've worked with at computer companies, we try to under-promise and over-deliver.

[geneven]

I seem to be slowly abandoning Microsoft and Windows. I miss TextAloud, but can live without it.

You may have read about Novell and SUSE's new ageement with Microsoft. I don't know whether that has implications for Nextup, but it might.

Linux is becoming more and more usable, and easier. It is true that many Linux users don't like paying for software, but as more users join Linux, I'm sure that many who are willing to pay will also join. I have already purchased a voice for use in Linux (which I didn't particularly like).

[rsperberg]

Well, I haven't sent an email to sales@nextup.com, but I want to chime on the Linux interest.

I'm not even halfway to using Linux (eg, 4 computers: 1 is Linux and another is dual-boot), but in one way I find the notion of buying software on Linux easier than on Windows because I know that my money goes a lot farther, for my essential apps, and there are lots of open-source options for things I find interesting but can only invest time and not dollars in.

The other reason I would lobby for Linux is that my Nokia 770 runs a Debian Linux strain and I can't imagine anything more satisfying than listening to a book read on an 8-ounce device that I really can carry around with me all the time.

Roger Sperberg

[D.Leikin]

Upon playing some with TextAloud running under Wine on my Linux PC I can testify to the fact that this great text-to-speech application retains in Linux most of its Windows features such as: text-to-speech conversion using SAPI5-compliant premium voices from AT&T, NeoSpeech, Acapela, RealSpeak, and Cepstral; reading texts aloud from the main window as well as from other Windows applications running under Wine on Linux, Basic and Advanced pronunciation Editors, support for engine-level voice-specific phoneme pronunciation editors, Tags, Masks and Regular Expressions, the Clipboard-watching options supported both in Single-article and Multi-article modes (clipboard is only shared among Windows apps running under Wine, of course), Random and Round Robin voice selection, the File Splitter Utility, the Batch File Converter, conversion of text to WAVe and MP3 files (haven’t tested Text-to-WMA conversion yet), opening TXT, HTML, and PDF documents directly from anywhere in the Linux file system, the tray icon, the floating bar… Well, I seem to be kind of retelling the Manual. Let me just single out couple of features that don’t seem to work on Linux. These are the skins, the hot-keys, and (maybe) the plug-ins – just haven’t tried using Outlook or a web browser on Wine yet.

So my overall impression is that NextUp TextAloud is no longer stopping world from going Linux.