Kayako blog

Shameless teaser.

Version 4 has been in development for some time, and we have been frequently asked to divulge specific information about its roadmap and an estimated release date. We have been consistent in our responses – we wouldn’t share specifics. This was for two reasons – to protect our competitive stance, and because our internal roadmap is always on the move.

Development is progressing very quickly, and we now feel that we are in a position to start talking more specifically about Version 4. Over the coming months, this “talk” will build up to detailed feature previews and eventually usable preview builds.

We understand that our tight-lipped policy is a cause for some frustration. We are sorry for this, and wish we could spill the beans about everything now. However, we still have to strike a balance. It is great to have a community that is so enthusiastic about our products, and we completely respect that our customers have the right and need to know where our time is going, and to have the chance to provide feedback. Rest assured, there will be time do so.

On the subject of feedback and feature requests, it is not at all too late to send them in. We are processing well over a thousand individual feature requests. We will leave no stone unturned and no request unconsidered. If you have feature requests, please post them on the forums.

Now, a Q&A session with ourselves:

What is Version 4? A product line refresh, or something more substantial?

‘Version 4′ represents a major iteration of our entire product line, and Kayako as a company. As well as new versions of our core support desk solutions and desktop applications, we will be introducing other major new products and services.

Our goal with Version 4 is to provide with a Swiss army knife support tool. It will be agile, flexible, fast and will tailor exactly to your organization’s context and workflow strategy. Version 4 will be scalable – both in terms of quantitative performance and with respect to your organization and support desk demands.

Whether you are a small or medium business, a government organization, a department, an academic institution or a large enterprise, Kayako’s product offering will be more than capable to fit to your requirements. We continue to spend months of time on research and usability testing. By employing the same innovative approaches that made Version 3 a success with such a broad customer base, you will not find yourself suffering from the ‘bloatware’ effect: features that you have no use for will not clutter your workflow, get in your way or slow the application down.

If you want a comprehensive, feature rich, integrated support suite that supports industry workflow and support framework standards (such as ITSM’s ITIL), Kayako is for you. If you want a simple, e-mail integrated ticketed support solution, Kayako is still for you.

As well as being kind to your end-users, support teams and system administrators, Version 4 will represent a new landmark and industry standard in its core architecture, interface and in terms of application usability. Version 4 will allow your support teams to get more done in less time – reducing management strains, workload and costs.

Version 4 represents the era of integration. Integrated, first-class support tools that will truly enable you to save time and reduce your costs – no fluff. Just real, tangible results.

Is Version 4 nearly ready?

Although vast amounts of work has already been done (hundreds of thousands of lines of code, hundreds of sketches, internal articles and thousands of cups of coffee), Version 4 is not yet ‘just around the corner’. The course of this year will be our busiest and most active, and we are working hard towards a beta release.

Are you going to release an ETA?

Over the coming months, it’ll be obvious to you just how far ahead we are with Version 4. With that said, we are not yet in a position to estimate a release date. As soon as we are, we will do so. Our internal roadmap and development process is agile and is always changing – often substantially. Once it stabilises, we’ll then be in a position to talk release times.

Is Version 4 going to have a surprise, unexpected launch?

Absolutely not. Be assured that we will not keep you guessing. We will do our utmost to ensure you have the information necessary to plan and accommodate, in plenty of time.

For how long have you been working on Version 4?

If you count design and idea phases, almost three years.

I am an existing Kayako user. Am I going to have to relearn everything with Version 4?

Most definitely not. Although we are introducing hundreds of new features, implementations and new concepts to our core support desk solutions, existing Kayako users will find the transition to be a natural one. Despite introducing incredible innovations into our Version 4 products, we will not force a major new learning curve on our current users (this includes your end-users, staff users and administrator users).

Are you continuing to work on the current Version 3?

Yes we are.

Will it cost anything to upgrade to Version 4?

We have no information to give out at this time.

Will there be other screenshots posted?

Yes – when we have things to preview (such as additional screenshots, feature specifications and development updates), we will post about them here on the blog.

When is the next update or preview?

We’ll do our best to keep them regular, but there is no specific posting schedule.

That is all for now. We hope that this answered your questions, and we look forward to sharing more of our hard work with you soon.

For more information on what you can see in the screenshot, see the discussion thread in our forums.