About Citavi for Mac

[Hans Siem Schweiger]

After 2½ years of work, we are canceling development of Citavi for Mac. Read on to learn why we made this tough decision.

When we started developing Citavi for Mac in 2009, we set three goals: First, Citavi for Mac should have the look and feel of a real Mac program and be a solid member of the Mac ecosystem. Second, users that have been using Citavi on Windows or in virtualization, such as Parallels, should be able to keep using their Citavi projects on Citavi for Mac. Third, Citavi for Mac should use the core of the Windows version to make development more rapid.

To meet these goals, we invested a lot of time, creativity and money, and built multiple prototypes on various technical platforms. Ultimately, we decided to use MonoMac, a promising project led by the lead developers of Mono. (Mono is an open source implementation of the .NET Framework that Citavi is based on.) Mono was financed and maintained by the well-known company Novell. Recently, however, Novell was sold. The new owner, Attachmate, chose to close the Mono division and let go all of its developers. The developers have founded a new company, but it is focused on mobile development (iOS and Android), making MonoMac an uncertain foundation for our program. Because of this, we no longer see a way to meet our goals for Citavi for Mac in a timely fashion while ensuring its continued existence. We are truly sorry to have to disappoint you after such a long wait.

So will Mac users never have the opportunity to use Citavi? No. For now, virtualization continues to be a good option, especially Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. We're going to concentrate on finishing Citavi 4, which will contain important and frequently requested features. After that, we plan to… no, we're not going to do that! We shared too much, too early, about the development of Citavi for Mac and set expectations that we now cannot meet. It didn't do anyone any favors. We're going to do it right this time by waiting until after the release of Citavi 4 to let you know what's coming next.

Dieser Beitrag in Deutsch.

[abusch]

After that, we plan to… no, we're not going to do that! We shared too much, too early, about the development of Citavi for Mac and set expectations that we now cannot meet. It didn't do anyone any favors. We're going to do it right this time by waiting until after the release of Citavi 4 to let you know what's coming next.

Let me take issue with what you write here. You did not "share too much, too early" -- we users hardly had any firm information. And it is also not true that it "didn't do anyone any favors". Your company handily profited from the expectations that you raised, so stop whining. Many Mac users bought Citavi licenses in the expectation of a Mac version, and because we were promised that they could be exchanged for Mac licenses.

Sorry to be so blunt here. But I supported your software for a long time, and I question both your communications strategy and your strategic decision. Not giving Mac users any perspective with Citavi will force us to abandon your product. And publishing your information on a Friday afternoon makes me suspicious that you want "to bury bad news" rather than engage in a constructive dialogue with the users you let down.

Best wishes,

A. Busch

[Antonio Tejada]

Dear A. Busch,

I can see that you are frustrated, which is completely understandable. Believe me when I tell you that we're just as disappointed at not being able to ship a Mac version as you are.

Let me take issue with what you write here. You did not "share too much, too early" -- we users hardly had any firm information.

Well, we kept naming dates that we then missed. That is to say, we made promises. At the time we made them, we thought they were realistic. It turns out we were wrong. In retrospect, it would have been better to not make any promises in advance.

And it is also not true that it "didn't do anyone any favors". Your company handily profited from the expectations that you raised, so stop whining. Many Mac users bought Citavi licenses in the expectation of a Mac version, and because we were promised that they could be exchanged for Mac licenses.

That was never an intended effect. We will work with affected users to find a solution.

Sorry to be so blunt here. But I supported your software for a long time, and I question both your communications strategy and your strategic decision.

On the point of communication strategy in the past, we couldn't agree more (which is why we are changing it, and are no longer pre-announcing things). On the point of strategic decision: I understand how frustrating this is for you. (Outside of the office, I'm a Mac user myself -- I've never owned a Windows PC -- so I really do understand wanting to use a native application. And as someone who sold Macs for years, I am keenly aware of their growing market share in academia.) That said, at this point, the decision has been made, and for sound reasons.

Not giving Mac users any perspective with Citavi will force us to abandon your product.

I understand that not knowing is extremely frustrating. But announcing things that aren't ready to ship hasn't worked out that great in the past, and there's no reason to believe that strategy will work better in the future. Going forward, we're going to avoid announcing things in advance.

And publishing your information on a Friday afternoon makes me suspicious that you want "to bury bad news" rather than engage in a constructive dialogue with the users you let down.

The timing could have been better, but we are glad to engage in constructive dialog with you now.

Regards,
Antonio

[Calliope]

Well, I was considering buying Citavi, which is not popular in the US, because I had heard a lot of good things about it. This is not going to happen now.

Citavi has more or less given up on the US institutional market, because if you do not have native applications for Mac, universities will not buy licenses for your product.

This is an extraordinarily poor decision, in my personal opinion, that reflects outmoded thinking. Apple share of personal computing is growing, not shrinking.

It's such a pity, because I think Citavi is one of the strongest products out there, though competitor programs (some of them free) are catching up.

[mickeyonacoustic]

Well, I was considering buying Citavi, which is not popular in the US, because I had heard a lot of good things about it. This is not going to happen now.

Citavi has more or less given up on the US institutional market, because if you do not have native applications for Mac, universities will not buy licenses for your product.

This is an extraordinarily poor decision, in my personal opinion, that reflects outmoded thinking. Apple share of personal computing is growing, not shrinking.

It's such a pity, because I think Citavi is one of the strongest products out there, though competitor programs (some of them free) are catching up.

Such as?

[peterbuilt]

According to this http://xamarin.com/mac Xamarin.Mac (aka MonoMac) development seems to have been restarted.

Does this change your plans for the development of a Citavi for Mac version?

Like many Mac users, I do not wish to play the extra price of Windows and a virtual machine while also opening up the system to increased security threats. If Citavi would work with Wine/Crossover that would be the next best thing.

[Hans Siem Schweiger]

Hi peterbuilt,

Thank you for the hint and the link.

Of course, we understand that the additional costs for Windows and for a virtual machine are real obstacles for Mac users - apart from the "non-nativeness".

Nevertheless, we currently do not plan to recommence the development of Citavi Mac. We've started a more platform independent development and as soon as we've reached beta status we will release more detailed information.

Best regards,
Hans

[peterbuilt]

Well, a platform independent solution sounds very promising! Looking forward... any chance it will happen by the end of the year?

Cheers

[Jennifer Schultz]

Hi peterbuilt,

We're very excited about the platform-independent solution! Unfortunately it's still a bit too early to give time estimates for the release, though.

Thanks very much for your understanding!

Best regards,
Jennifer

[slempert]

Dear all,

according to the following news Microsoft recently announced that it will Open Source .NET (including .NET Framework Libraries, .NET Core Framework Libraries and the RyuJit VM) under the very permissive MIT license and provide a corresponding patent promise:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/ ... 52033.html
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2014/Nov-12.html

Furthermore in the future Microsoft will develop the .NET Core Framework together with Xamarin / Mono. Thus it is only a question of time until .NET will be really cross-platform and available for Windows, Linux distributions, BSD, OS X and Solaris.

That said, from my point of view the initial reason as posted by Hans Siem Schweiger on 2011-09-16 arguing the canceling of the development of Citavi for Mac has no justification anymore.

Having this in mind I would like to ask whether there will be Citavi for Mac in the future?

Best regards, Sebastian