Talk:FirstClass

Market Share Loss to Google and Microsoft

Should it be mentioned that OpenText is loosing quite a few customers to Google and Microsoft's free(and paid) offerings? Mainly Google Apps for Edu and Microsoft Office 365 for Education (formerly Live@edu). Dtaylor05 (talk) 18:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Article Objectivity

Every time the author of FirstClass rewrites this article, it does it in such a way that this article is a glorious advertisement of FirstClass. When this will ever stop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wk master editor (talk • contribs) 09:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Please re-read the Talk page guidelines, including "Be Positive", and "Deal with Facts". Please quote specifics; vague comments aren't very useful.DLLHell (talk) 02:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

"The author of FirstClass" is not rewriting this article from what I can see....not sure where you got that impression, but if you're going to make that kind of accusation, please back it up with your source/proof. I did a lot of the revisions and have nothing to do with FirstClass other than being expert at running it in my organization and being very familiar with the product. In looking at the article, I don't see much different than similar articles for Microsoft Exchange Server, IBM Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, etc: it doesn't seem like any more of a "glorious advertisement" than those articles, but if you feel that way please give some specific examples so that we can fix it. DLLHell (talk) 14:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Which editor? This article has been edited by quite a few different accounts.

I agree some of the article is written in an inappropriate tone and I've done some editing to try and improve it it. There's more work to do. You could help out yourself too by either editing the article or being more specific here on exactly needs changing. Constant complaints that don't give other editors a clear idea of what exactly you are finding fault with are much less likely to be acted on than clear and civil suggestions for improvement. -- SiobhanHansa 12:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know I am the only "author of FirstClass" who edits this. I use my account and don't hide behind an anonymous update. I try to keep my updates factual and non-promotional. Right now the page is a big mess with lots of negative inaccurate stuff. FirstClass is very popular and runs at thousands of sites with millions of users. Many of the people who edit this page have some experience with the product. We at FirstClass do not officially maintain this page or use it for promotion. I wish I had more time to fill in the technical and historical sections, unfortunately someone deleted my nice Architecture picture. -Steve --Steve (talk) 19:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Steve, your nice architecture picture was deleted because of Wikipedia global guidelines on images.[1] If you are able to make this image free (which you probably can), or justify why the non-free version is still fair use, it would be a valuable addition to the article. -DLLHell (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Advertisement

"OpenText FirstClass continues to remain a strong and innovative product. Under the new leadership of division General Manager, John Mitropoulos, VP WW Sales, Judie Simpson, and a highly experienced, focused and energized team behind them, the current FirstClass team is setting the bar very high with the release of FirstClass 12." => this is not descriptive, it's an advertisement -- can it be deleted?

Blatant advertising Again

The language is not even by far neutral. Even if the article is indeed pretty big and well written, it doesn't mean it isn't spam. This time it should really be deleted or all dubious text trimmed.

Please re-read the Talk page guidelines, including "Be Positive", and "Deal with Facts". Please quote specifics; vague comments aren't very useful.DLLHell (talk) 02:38, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Liverpool University quiting FirstClass

This information was posted on this web page and deleted. For example Univ. of Liverpool already switched to BlackBoard due to a huge number of complains about critical bugs and lack of decent functionality in FirstClass. http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/csd/blackboard/scripts/ Maury DO NOT DELETE THIS INFO AGAIN! It is not your choice to decide it the visitors should be informed about the bug in FirstClass software or not.

FirstClass is an email and collaboration system, whereas BlackBoard is an LMS. They are not competing products. --Steve (talk) 19:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

FAKE INFO [Incorrect]

There is a paragraph saying that FirstClass v9.1 appeared in January of 2008 and that it fixed many bugs. But there is no such thing on the official web site: http://www.intl.firstclass.com/Downloads/Clients FirstClass is as buggy as ever. Probably the most buggy software I ever used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fedra (talk • contribs) 22:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Quote: "FirstClass version 9.0 was released in June of 2007, followed by 9.1 in January of 2008. In addition to bugfixes, major new features in 9.0 included an automatic server-based and policy-driven archiving service for legal..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fedra (talk • contribs) 22:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This is incorrect; it's not "fake info". FirstClass routinely releases production versions to it's customers (administrators of FirstClass systems) via the FCOL system well before they hit the website. This is to allow the adminstrators to test and prepare for upgrades before their users can start to "roll their own" upgrades via the FirstClass website. The statement about v9.1 being released in January 2008 is correct. Please know what you're talking about before you make accusations like this. Your opinion of "buggy software" is ridiculously subjective and could just as well be your user error or a variety of other factors than actual bugs in the software; there are undoubtedly bugs, but with only your vague statements and no specifics, of course, there can be no useful discussion of the matter. DLLHell (talk) 14:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There is indeed A LOT of things that needs to be critized when it comes to FirstClass. Theres was a number of downloadable server-executebles, now removed it appears, giving anyone access to the FirstClass server software. Firsttoff:

A FirstClass service at a machine always use one thread to do it's work, that is a bit oldschool, but the real problem is it keeps this thread running at maximum in order to "increase performance". Even if there's noone online, the FirstClass service keeps 1 thread at max. To quote the FirstClass documentation:

"Q.I have noticed that First Class and First Class IS, which are both running on the same computer, keeps the processor pegged at 100% all the time...even when idle. A view with a Process Viewer shows the two processes each using anywhere from 48% - 52%. Is this the normal behavior?

A.Yes, that's normal behavior, on all platforms. In order to maximize performance on servers intended to support thousands of users, the server runs uses what I call all available "leftover" CPU. (If the processor is not being used for something else, we use the CPU to improve performance.) This is intentional and part of the design. I know it looks unusual, but you shouldn't be concerned by it."

Now that's just crappy programming. And also, even though the FirstClass services only uses ONE thread per service, Open Text recommends to run one service per machine. That gives me the impression that someone can't count =) Because if you have a four-core server, one service would only use one core. Although this is about to change with version 10, (it is said that said that version 10 will allow usage of more threads, hopefully not use all cores at 100% though)

And if you wan't a bug: ever used FirstClass RAD? I did a project with a friend in FirstClass this summer, using FirstClass 9 and the at-the-time newest available FCAS service that was available. It hangs, gives you weird error messages, ALL THE TIME. (Tried the same thing with FC 8.3, no change!)

Also last time i tried, FirstClass on linux is a really, really buggy program. You need to run the windows version in wine to get it to stay alive.

In the documentation for FCDS it says:

" To start FCDS:

1 Open the DOS command prompt window. ..."

A DOS window? Again losing credibility for FirstClass plattform... also every client has a default template for a "dailup modem" connection, allowing you to enter a phone number to call to your FirstClass server. I ask you this question: Who since the year 2000 uses a modem connection that doesn't have TCP/IP? Again I wonder what the FirstClass team is up to.

I could fill in a lot of more... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.138.170 (talk) 18:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Advertisement

I'm again adding the spam tag to First Class

Here are just a few examples...

The article refers to a "superior BBS" . "SoftArc had grown into a major Mac software vendor" How many sales? What's the definition of "major" "has over 10 million users " - not cited.

"By the mid-1990s the product was used for the vast majority of Mac BBSes, and their popularity only increased with the introduction of a Microsoft Windows client." - Again no citation

SD tag

Give me a break. An anon user posts an AD tag to the page without any explaination. I remove, at which point he/she posts several fairly minor points to my talk page. I come back to find this SD instead. I'm inclined simply to delete it. Maury 21:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

SD declined

I declined the speedy deletion of this article for the following reasons:

1. I've heard of this thing in "real life", so there's a chance it can be notable.
2. Requested CSD G12, but this is hardly "blatant" spam.
3. Requested CSD A7 website, but this article is about a software product, not a website.
4. Alleged conflicts of interest are not a valid reason to speedy delete an article as such. However, they may be grounds for an AfD discussion.
5. In any case, I'd be extremely hesitant to speedy-delete an article that has existed since 2005.

So if anyone still feels strongly about this, please consider AfD instead. Note, however, that possible biases, adversitory language and other problems like that are (in my opinion) better handled through ordinary cleanup - please tag accordingly. Have a nice day. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Remove failure to cite?

I and others have added quite a few citations and sources to this article, and removed some of the more subjective material. Is it good enough at this point to remove the "failure to cite" tag on the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DLLHell (talk • contribs) 05:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

External links modified

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end of life?

there's no mention of FC anymore on Opentext's website and www.firstclass.com redirects to Opentext.com perhaps its time to update to that the product has been ended? 75.172.71.109 (talk) 08:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Early history vs Company history?

These two sections feel like they could be merged perhaps. The Company history section starts in 1999 while the Early history is referring to events significantly before that unless FC became a company at some point, but that not initially clear. --gilgongo (talk) 07:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)