Criteria for accepting an idea - Idea Exchange or Talent Show?

[IanDeaville(ZF)]

A recent issue has prompted me to look into the Ideas Exchange, where suggestions are posted for future product development.  I was not impressed with what I discovered. 

There are requests for update that have a significant technical impact on the requestor, and would seem to be a logical extension of the functionality of LabVIEW, but they get only a few Kudos, and are therefore declined.  I would argue that some of these rejections are short-sighted, as they then limit the capabilities of LabVIEW as a platform for future applications. 

It seems that product development is based on how many "votes" a request receives, rather than the strategic or technical merits of the request.  Is NI really running product development like a talent show?  While I can see the aesthetic benefit from reducing the bends in wires, or cleaner block diagrams, these vanish into insignificance behind actual technical functionality. 

Is there a protocol defining how & why a development idea becomes accepted, or what we might expect from NI's own development decisions?  Does NI have it's own ideas and product development direction, or is it only reacting to the most popular items on these lists?

[Ben]

The Idea Exchange grew out of the LabVIEW Champions program when we started throwing out ideas and ...

If an idea comes up that does not gt a lot of votes but it clearly will enhance LV, NI will consider those ideas and determine the cost/benefit of the change.

NI also has their own ideas that we may not know about until they tell us they re ready for Beta testing.

The bottom line is that NI has a fiduciary responsibility to its investors to give them a return on their investment. If an idea can improve the return to the investors, then there is s good chance they may incorporate the changes.

So the idea exchange is not a talent show but more an open door through which idea can be evaluated from source outside of NI.

Ben

[Blokk]

Does NI have it's own ideas and product development direction, or is it only reacting to the most popular items on these lists?

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I suggest you to watch the YouTube videos from the NI week 2017 (just go to the NI channel in YouTube). There you will get an idea where NI wants to direct their products. Very interesting approach, in the next years we will have LabVIEW but also LV NXG in parallel. Some ideas will be implemented only in the NXG, some in LV, some in both, and some in none...

[crossrulz]

The Idea Exchange is mostly a marketing tool.  NI marketing uses it as justification for new features each release.

NI definitely has a path they want to go down with LabVIEW.  Part of the problem was core components of the IDE that are 30 years old were restrictive.  That was why NI spent many years to completely redo it (now released as NXG).  The hope is that the IDE will be open enough to be able to accomplish many of the technical features that were the classic IDE prevented.