I know rollouts can be challenging. I mean, just look at how nervous AT&T was prior to the much-delayed MMS launch yesterday. Well, it looks like Evernote’s rollout of the 3.5 Beta desktop client for Windows has been causing the company, and some of their most hardcore users, some grief.

Turns out my timing was “perfect”. The Fujitsu P1630 came yesterday and I set out to put my “must-have” applications on it. Firefox- check. Skype- check. Dragon- Check. TimesReader- check. Evernote- UH OH!

The 3.5 Beta loaded just fine but every time I tried to sync I was met with a “Sync Failure” message. And it seems like I am not alone.

Now I understand that Evernote intentionally released this with the “Beta” label attached. That certainly buys them some wiggle room for issues, bugs and crashes.

What I DON’T get is why, at the first sign of issues, companies don’t put a message in an easy to find, totally obvious place.

In this case after twenty attempts to sync my account to the new notebook I went hunting around in the forums to see if it wasn’t the configuration I was using but a systemic problem on Evernote’s side. Turns out it was and there were already three pages of comments and complaints. Worse yet, while the first complaint was logged at 8:35am there wasn’t confirmation of the issue until 1pm and they didn’t post a word on it until mid-afternoon.

Now on the one hand the argument could be made that (a) stuff happens and (b) it was responded to and worked on within the day. That may well be true but when a service that hopes to be “your external brain” has issues it is no minor thing. And when the only way to find out that it isn’t you causing the issue is to go digging around in the forums it only makes the matter worse.

The training flight attendants receive has little to do with food and beverage service and everything to do with responding in the unlikely event of an emergency. That’s the measure of a company too.

Sure, there is now a post in the forum from them…

I would be a whole lot more impressed however if the Beta page had something like this…

And as I was finishing this post once again the sync process failed… after loading just 73 of my 3000 notes. sigh…

Related posts:

1. Evernote 3.5 for Windows Public Beta Now Available
2. Evernote Adds Yet Another New Feature
3. Evernote Continues To Listen… Adds Notebook Sharing
4. Evernote For Pre Available Now
5. Evernote Blog Goes Thematic