Peach updated her blog today to talk about her recent departure from Corona.
Heres the link for those of us who wanted a little closure on the subject 
http://base.techority.com/2012/12/13/on-leaving-corona-labs/ [import]uid: 62706 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 134988[/import]
I just read her blogā¦ Iām quite disappointed here are my 3 cents:
Removing those tutorials is a bad move on her part IMHO. Peach has grown to be what she is from this community. I think itās her loss not providing them anymore and she will loose some crowd.
That being said you can find a lot of tutorials on Google so for the community itās not a big deal.
As someone with more than 15 years of experience in the software industry and a Co-Owner of a startup company I would think 101 times before hiring her nowā¦ Bashing your old (and still fresh) employer publicly (and correct me if Iām wrong but I think CoronaLabs was her first employer) just means youāll do it again (or something similar) in the future. I think this hurts her career much more than CoronaLabs and because of the exposure this canāt easily be corrected. So yes, she probably has a saved spot in Lanica but that platform doesnāt seem that promising and their first step was to sell SpriteLoq at a higher price tag not really a good start for me.
The faults she mentioned in the post are common to medium-large sized companies. I think she is young and a bit naive to think otherwise but Iāve seen a few examples.
Roadmaps change and so do priorities especially when you have a lot of cash invested by outsiders. Every shareholder has his own agenda and voting rights and this will happen to ANY company choosing to go in this path.
That being said I think Coronaās future really depends on the promised plugins feature or making enterprise free to all pro users because for us at least the SDK is becoming more and more limiting and the competition is ahead in some areas.
PS: Iām sure Carlos also left Corona because of similar reasons but his silence was maybe frustrating to a lot of people but showed he has some ethics. I think Peach has a lot to learn in this respect. [import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 134998[/import]
@gtt, I agree entirely.
What she did was extremely unprofessional, John did the same thing when he left. I would never hire her if I so needed because people almost always leave at some point and if that is how you make your exit, it is not worth it.
I also agree Coronaās future depends a lot on the success of the plugins, this is a big missing feature from Corona compared to the competition and is Coronaās weakest link. If they do this well, it could really do wonders for Coronaās success in keeping existing developers and getting new ones.
I think she has some truth in what she said though, it seems a lot of key people left Corona recently. [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135004[/import]
I disagree. Business ethics in an oxymoron in the real world. Money trumps what is right almost every time. She has integrity and yes that may hurt her. However I see it as a good thing.
Law professor Stephen L. Carter writes that integrity requires three steps:
ādiscerning what is right and what is wrong; acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong.ā
Just my 2c. [import]uid: 56820 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135008[/import]
Iām with @gtt and @cspence to a degree, it never does to publicly have a go at a previous employer, however bad you think/may have been treated.
That said, Peachās departure does raise some interesting questions - why is it that eight of the ācoreā team have left in the last 12 months and where is the functionality that weāve been promised fo an age (Levels for instance).
Itās true that in the process of expansion companies suffer growing pains, folks leave for a variety of reasons, including the fact they become disillusioned with the direction a company takes etc etc but as a paying customer Iād like to get some assurances from the management that the wheels arenāt falling off the wagon.
I chose Corona because of the companyās positive attitude, itās pledge to support itās customer base and because itās quite simply the best tool for the job if you want to develop cross-platform.
Iād like to believe Corona is and will continue to be that tool, but with the focus on the Enterprise Edition, as Peach said in her blog, it does feel as though the āstandardā devs are being left behind.
Right now, I canāt afford to go Enterprise and with a couple of apps under my belt I need reassurances that Iām heading in the right direction and with the best tool for the job because Iām not prepared to bet the future of my business on a tool that gets only lucklustre support.
Perhaps now would be a good time for Walter to chip in with a few words of wisdom and some assurances (and possibly) rough dates for when promised functionality will appear.
I see today Corona have announced a deal with a cloud company - that might be good news for some and certainly has taken up a good deal of managementās time. For me, however, a stable platform with growing support for native features and the ability to be able to confidently move forward are way more important.
Just my $0.02
MrCrussell [import]uid: 45444 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135014[/import]
Iām not with Corona staff and I have no real answers.
I do have a perspective of a pro programmer more than a year now. And was following CoronaSDK even before that.
As much as I loved the product when I started I can say that I was very disappointed with the progress made in this year. I think Corona is great but I donāt feel those 12 members were any kind of āmagicā team, I think they are ākeyā members to this failure. Hell, maybe some fresh blood in the system would improve the dev pace
Just remember - nobody is irreplaceable (if someone in a company is, then it means that company is in deep shit)
Lets face it. Building such an SDK is not rocket science. Itās A LOT of dirty work bridging between lua and the different device. The ācoreā code I suspect is quite small. These SDK are popping out like mushrooms after the rain
I know a new investment of 2 million came in a few months ago and I think those people want results more than us so, Iām optimisticā¦
Of course a bit more transparency on the subject from someone official would be niceā¦
Regarding integrityā¦ well thatās really an unknown. What are her motives? Does Carlos have less integrity because he didnāt go public on the subject?
I suspect that Peach in her post had the intention to harm CoronaLabs. Itās legit to have integrity and leave a working space while telling your boss exactly what you think of him and his company. Itās a different thing going on a public blog and writing about it to all the gangā¦ itās just wrong. Did CoronaLabs in any way try to harm Peach in such a way? Probably not. I think taking it off the business track an making things personal like Peach did is just unethicalā¦ And again as an employer I would not see this as a good thing.
I also think itās quite obvious she is leaving to Lanica, I think thatās ok. Thatās were she saw her future and even if sheās not saying that now thatās where Iām guessing sheāll end. I just donāt think you need to burn the house down before you leave because by doing that you are harming the community (and real people!) that helped you get to where you are now.
[import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135019[/import]
I see Corona as just like any other startup; they make mistakes, they figure out what mistakes they make, and if theyāre smart, they own up and move on. CL showed that flexibility before during iPhonegate and my guess is that Levels is just another function caught in the flood of trying to do whatās right for the software going forward.
Flexibility is even more crucial with SDKās like this because (a) you canāt afford a hundred engineers and (b) the bug list is going to be pretty high at all times. You have to be able to see the forest from the trees, and I have little doubt that the forest this year was (a) funding (b) a safe plugin architecture and Ā© new device support. We can talk all we want about bugs or widgets or feature X, but when it comes to being a functioning company with a roadmap, those need to be done, even if every other wishlist item gets set aside. When Walter dropped giving timeframes I totally understood.
Iām not subject to the internal politics, but at least from my perspective Corona has improved wildly since I first bought in a year ago. The stable build is a huge improvement over .604, we have usable widgets, the awesome imageSheet/spriteSheet setup, storyboard (!) and so on. Itās a slow drip, but the difference is clear.
Itās so good, so *sensical* that I canāt switch. (Iām a Lua guy, not a C# guy.) So I do the best thing I can do as a user - use the software, help (and post) on the forums, and file bugs as I find 'em. That way, Corona gets better, people get help, the programmers lose a percentage point of stress and once in awhile my ridiculous bug posts get answered! 
[import]uid: 41884 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135026[/import]
Just wanted to clear out that I wish everyone involved - CoronaLabs and Peach good luck in their own separate ways!
I know everyone makes their own decisions and things I might view as a āmistakeā might be interpreted differently by other people. I respect that.
I was just posting my view of things. might have been a bit harsh because I took it a bit hard
Cheers, [import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135029[/import]
@richard9. All those features you mentioned are great and I love them and use them in our games.
My point is different. These features are _not_ enough for a team of 12 people working more than a year.
CoronaLabs invested 12 man years ($500,000-$1,000,000 dollars depending on the salaries) and the released features list is quite short. And yes I know there is a lot of background noise but still. I feel the potential is not fulfilled. I know this might sound stupid with the little knowledge I have as an outsider, thatās just my feelingā¦
[import]uid: 80469 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135030[/import]
I hear you gtt.
Conversely, Iād just argue that if you look at the steps made, bugs fixed, business deals done, and then factor in things like hiringā¦itās a pretty realistic, if sobering, picture of how software development works, at least to my experience of the game industry. Firefighting xCode changes alone must have cost a really significant chunk of time in 2012.
I know it seems like it is too short, but these guys/gals arenāt automatons. They have real lives, a significant chunk of that time is going to be spent on planning, meetings, troubleshooting weird vendor bugs, etc. Execution just isnāt that fast when the code and team get to a certain size, because you have to trade in agile development for checks, balances, and legacy support.
Where Iād expect to see improvement is mostly just from ādoing the right thingā - stopping rework before it starts whenever possible. Corona has touched on a lot of rework this year, from widgets to this very forum. Itās a great learning experience, but obviously you donāt want to spent time reworking when youāve got so much else on your plate. [import]uid: 41884 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135036[/import]
I agree that the writing was on the wall (though it was more obvious after the Lanica stuff).
CoronaLabs has matured a bit as a company, and for those there from the beginning, it can be quite a shock when priorities shift away from what they believe is important. That goes for their employees (or ex-employees) and most of us as well.
There was a time when āindieā and āproā developers were their bread and butter, and the core platform received features often (even if they werenāt necessarily what we asked for).
That is no longer the case, as Enterprise reigns supreme. Thereās no reason for CoronaLabs to spend the majority of their time on features for the core platform, as they can get ridiculous money from licensing and support deals with Electronic Arts and their ilk. If a feature is missing, large enterprises can add it themselves. CoronaLabs only has to do enough to keep Indie and Pro developers from leaving, as weāre already invested in the platform. Thatās just smart business, and I canāt fault them for that.
You can bet most of their ābehind the scenesā effort is focused on creating new revenue streams for the company. Corona Cloud, Mac OS X, Windows Phone 8, etc. Things that get them new Indie/Pro developers and Enterprises, or more $$ from existing ones [import]uid: 36054 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135044[/import]
I donāt agree, what are they going to make from EA? Even if there are 20 developers at EA, thatās 40K/year tops (as Enterprise is 1-2K/y user). Thatās not much considering how many more indie/pro developers there are as a whole. On top of that, I doubt EA is going to buy 20 licenses, they probably only have 1-5 people working on Corona stuff, maybe scale up in the future but I doubt their entire team is switching to Corona.
When you start looking at Corona Enterprise, it loses many of the advantages it has over other SDK. At that point, Moai becomes a much more attractive option as well as Unity w/ 2D modules. Many big names are going towards Moai for development as you get full access to the source, can create whatever you want and have windows, mac and linux support right out of the gate. [import]uid: 160288 topic_id: 33863 reply_id: 135046[/import]
@cspence I was only trying to get across their focus on larger deals, EA (whether itās 5 people or 20 or whatever) is just one of the many they have. Behind the larger ones are also many more 2-3 person teams that have switched to Enterprise. Of course I believe the vast majority of their money is coming from Indie/Pro and that they should be investing there, but based on what Iāve seen and experienced this last year I donāt believe that is happening. I want to be wrong
I also agree with your points about Corona Enterprise. Very strongly. Thatās why Iāve remained a PRO developer. The entire point of Corona was to abstract out the complexity, and Enterprise pretty much ruins that.
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