Yep, LG nailed it. This is a software design problem that Jive *needs* to fix. Multiple (and I mean MANY) JS calls are killing performance for our overseas users, where the latency introduced by distance gets magnified by needing so many calls.

We pointed this out to Jive support months ago, but I have not heard anything further about whether making the change is in the pipeline. IMO, this is not a desire, but a requirement.

Hi, Kevin,

No argument from me on the improvements you are making in the tool! We are delighted with the features and are eager to deploy 3.0. We do look at the slowness as Clearspace's Achilles Heel, however, and urge you to aggressively address the issue.

Surely you agree that one of the selling points of your application is the ability to connect global offices into one tool that all can share regardless of geography. Why, then, not take the speed issues for distant users more seriously and (a) design your software to be as lightning fast as possible (e.g., one JS call not many) so as to minimize latency effects, and (b) offer your hosted customers a *complete* solution that includes CDN as an option.

I'm not suggesting you become a CDN provider, just that you contract with a CDN provider and make that a simple option for customers to select, and be completely honest up front about the need for a CDN if deploying to overseas locations. The CDN option should be part of your pricing package options.

In our case, we had no visibility into this need until we were well into the contracting process with Jive. We had already submitted our budget for approval based on the pricing that had been disclosed to us. Although we had discussions with Akamai later, there was simply no money available to pay for an additional, separate contract with them.

Clearspace should be used by global companies. It's providing tremendous value to us in just six months. But the more people like and value something, the more frustrated they get when it sucks to use it. And, yes, that's what I am told using Clearspace is like in Hong Kong, China, London, France, the Netherlands, etc. Love the software, hate the waiting and waiting for it to respond.

Final note on what I mean by taking the speed issues seriously: Jive should be ahead of its customers on these issues. You should be testing how your tool works in distant locations when you are hosting it (I'll give you a large pool of testers if you need them ). Every time you make a significant change to the software, the effect on speed should be evaluated. I'm not convinced that speed is currently important enough to Jive. If we have to figure out how to make your pages load faster (again, reference the JS calls issue), when you're the experts on your software, that indicates speed is not the priority it should be for you. I know you have brilliant people who can address speed issues. I must therefore conclude that Jive has not tasked them with increasing speed as a high enough priority.

All of this is from a loyal customer who intends to keep using Clearspace for many, many years and build it into a truly mission-critical part of our business. It's in both Jive and your customers' best interests to make Clearspace faster.