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Fire on the Mountain // Part Three

So here we are, FINALLY ready to release the much anticipated new branding AND CrossOver 20 for macOS, Linux AND Chrome OS.

June 2020.

Apple announced at WWDC plans to transition away from to Macs built with Intel to its own Apple Silicon chips starting in late 2020.

$%^!

Fire on the mountain!

That is not what this blog post is about. But yes, CrossOver 20 supports Big Sur and Apple Silicon. And yes we released CrossOver 20 for Chrome OS (no longer in beta) for the first time. >>>Read the changelog for CrossOver 20

Now back to marketing.

Here we are in the fourth quarter, FINALLY and FOR REALS REALS revealing our new identity.

We're rebels. We're misfits. But mostly, we're software liberators.

Disclosure: People struggle with change. You may find yourself reacting in a variety of ways — excited, furious, snarky, quiet or passive aggressive. This is all natural. It’s just how people deal with anything new. Keep in mind that you are still processing this.

>>>Read Part One: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been...
>>>Read Part Two: Every Silver Lining's Got a Touch of Grey

 It has taken us over a year to get here, and we’ve questioned nothing, and questioned everything. Through this process we kept in mind the value of our open-source community. We gave names to services that didn't have names (or a visual identity) and stayed true to our core: we are developers who are not afraid to tackle beastly technical challenges.

Our entire reason for being is to liberate software from restrictive platforms so that everyone involved (users, developers and businesses) can reap the benefits.

We Believe

Robin Hood had the right idea.
there is no such thing as a closed platform.
software was meant to be liberated.
And we believe we are the liberator.

We Believe

in making money so that we can keep going.
But we also believe in giving back.
And we also believe we need to prove it.
Because we believe people are smart enough to smell bullshit when they’re stepping it.

We Believe

in breaking stupid rules that get in the way of great software.
that users have the right to experience software the way the developer intended, no matter where they are, what platform they use, or what hardware they own.

We Believe

in building up the open source community.
in building up the next generation of talent.
the best people will be attracted to the greatest causes.
And we don’t care what the popular kids think.

We Believe

in doing hard things because they are hard.
in taking our mission seriously, and ourselves less seriously.
that makes us fun to be around.

Just because we believe we need to work with the world as it is, doesn't mean we don’t believe in the possibility of a better one.

And there you have it folks. Enjoy cruising around our new website and digesting our new identity.

Peace,
Jana

About Jana Schmid
Jana has been working in the marketing profession for over 15 years. She joined the CodeWeavers marketing department in 2010 and has earned oddities such as the Margaritaville Tahiti Frozen Concoction Maker and a lifetime supply of sparkling water for her performance as Marketing Director. Contact Jana at jana@codeweavers.com and learn more about her professional accomplishments on LinkedIn.

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

It does not look professional and that could scare away B2B partners. However, the only thing I care about is CrossOver, and there are still too many Windows apps that just crash or otherwise do not work out of the box. Focus on that, not on marketing.

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I agree. I am interested in your product working, not starting a revolution or virtue signaling.

I am already exposed to enough of that.

1

Wow. For someone with "ten years of marketing experience", you certainly don't know how to write copy, or even proofread before posting. There were so many writing style and grammar issues in your blog, it's off-putting, and does not reflect well on your company.

Also: your site doesn't work on phones; looking at the products page, two out of the three blurbs are unreadable because of the vertical gradient on the sides of the text, blocking it out.

The two above make your company look both amateurish and childish, an absolute deterrent to potential customers. Please go back to the old site where it was easy to navigate and read instead of trying to look trendy, psudo-rebellious and in-the-now.

The post also told me nothing. Bottom line: is CrossOver out of ChromeOS beta now? If so, I must buy it, as I like it very much.

CodeWeavers has a great product, and this revamp is doing it a disservice.

I've been a long time user of CrossOver on Mac, since 2009.
All I care about is that it works.
Which fundamentally is why I use it, it has always worked.

What I've seen over the years is when a company rebrands it is because they need to create hype around their products due to falling revenue. Or to distance itself from a failure. Or it has been acquired and new management wants a new look.

Your "We believe" manifesto reads as if it was written during a night of partying with marxist buddies sprinkled with generous amounts of a need to virtue signal.

Makes me concerned about the direction in which CodeWeavers might to be moving.

Wow. Ok, I like the whole "freedom" thing. But the rest? You missed "hip" and/or "cool" or whatever you were aiming at by at least half a continent. And I mean one of the big ones like Africa.

And what is in the header background on the CrossOver page? Might be a penis, you can't really tell.

Where's the actual information? Sure CrossOver 20 is out. What's new? Why do I want it? I was going to quote something asinine from the product page as an example of what I DON'T want, but then decided that pasting the entire page here was a bit redundant.

Bafflement.

New site? New style? Eww...

Have to agree with the first several comments. Marketing seems to be what runs our economy for the past 20+ years and it hasn't gone well, IMHO. Crossover has long spent an irrational amount of time trying to look "cool" and it seems that that desire has now completely taken over. Very disappointing. Like the other commenters, I'm interested in software that works, not how cool or hip it is (or thinks it is). Try again, with less hype.

I use Crossover to run Quicken on an Ubuntu linux machine: Crossover is wonderful, been doing it for years, a big step up from using a VM.
My 2 cents: keep the product good and the rest will take care of itself.

Wow, I'm honestly appalled by the amount of borderline hateful comments over a design change. Do you people also punch your neighbour in the face if they happen to paint their house in a colour that is not to your liking?

On the topic of rebranding: I personally do not care much, but I certainly hope it helps bring in business and keep the company thriving. Best of luck. Looking forward to trying CrossOver 20 though.

Giving an opinion is not hate.

Post titles "Silver Lining" and "Fire on the Mountain" reminds me of The Dark is Rising

I like the visual look of the new branding. "Software Liberators" is cute. Front page seems a little generic for me but maybe that's what you need in a B2B consultancy... the "CrossOver" sub-page starts speaking my language.

Agree with other commenters that I would like to know what's new in CrossOver 20.

Thanks for all the hard work!

See, I have the opposite view. I know what the program does and have purchased it, but let's say I don't. I randomly stumble across this website one day, and it's confusing; is it a concert page (first image seen)? Is it a blog? Is it a program? Is it selling something? I do not understand what it is they're trying to tell me, or what their company is as the images and layout are incongruous to what they are selling.

There's too much immaturity in the ad copy and blog; I admit, it could be my age (39.5 as of writing) and work history (government administrative assistant trained in editing anal-retentiveness), but what I read on this site doesn't appeal to me.

Codeweavers is trying to sell a productivity app, one that will allow a person to use Microsoft programs for far less money on Macs and Chromebooks, something today's working professional tech flexibility needs. Said people are wearing suits or business casual, and are looking for and expect articulate, to-the-point ad copy that will say exactly what the product does, hoping it's simple to install and use, nevermind does what it's advertised to.

This image makeover makes it seem that they're 14-year-olds that are trying their hand at programming and entrepreneurship. Memes and catchphrases come and go, making the meme phrase "hold my beer" appear very dated, even now in October 2020; they can use "challenge accepted" or "we accepted their/the challenge" instead as an example.

If they're trying to get the attention of Google, Apple or Microsoft for a partnership, or another major company/schools to get a lucrative deal to push Codeweaver's program(s) to those machines, this approach is going to be a crash and burn fail. Seriously, who would want to work with a small company that "looks and acts" this way online?

There's a difference between quirky yet professional (see: old Think Geek product pages) and looking immature, as if it's their first MySpace or WordPress site. This is sadly the latter. I'd rather they go back to their original site; it was clean, easy to navigate, to-the-point, and you could tell right away that they were selling a product.

For me, this image update reeks of those shady phishing sites, selling something that's possibly malicious, or prepared to steal my identity. I know they aren't and won't; however, for other paranoid people like me, we'd nope out of the page fast.

Forrest or Kathy Allen wrote:

I use Crossover to run Quicken on an Ubuntu linux machine: Crossover
is wonderful, been doing it for years, a big step up from using a
VM.
My 2 cents: keep the product good and the rest will take care of
itself.

You're good people. We appreciate you!

Paul wrote:

Post titles "Silver Lining" and "Fire on the Mountain" reminds me of
The Dark is Rising

I like the visual look of the new branding. "Software Liberators" is
cute. Front page seems a little generic for me but maybe that's what
you need in a B2B consultancy... the "CrossOver" sub-page starts
speaking my language.

Agree with other commenters that I would like to know what's new in
CrossOver 20.

Thanks for all the hard work!

You are also good people. Thank you for being kind.
You can find the change-log at: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/changelog to find more information about the release of CrossOver 20.

20SYL wrote:

Wow, I'm honestly appalled by the amount of borderline hateful
comments over a design change. Do you people also punch your
neighbour in the face if they happen to paint their house in a
colour that is not to your liking?

On the topic of rebranding: I personally do not care much, but I
certainly hope it helps bring in business and keep the company
thriving. Best of luck. Looking forward to trying CrossOver 20
though.

I blame the 'borderline hateful comments' on being the first day of Mercury in Retrograde. ;)

Thank you. Kindness always wins.

Jessica-Marie Gervais wrote:

Also: your site doesn't work on phones; looking at the products
page, two out of the three blurbs are unreadable because of the
vertical gradient on the sides of the text, blocking it out.

Yeah, that was my fault. 😊 It was fixed pretty quickly after launch. Should look much better now.

1

Jana Schmid wrote:

[b]I blame the 'borderline hateful comments' on being the first day
of Mercury in Retrograde. ;) [/b]


And there it is.

You label the opinions you disagree with as "hateful", essentially attempting to dismiss those opinions. Quoting the post in that manner only confirms that you agree with the poster's opinion that the comments are "hateful'. There is no 'borderline'; you think it is either hateful or it is not hateful.

Not a good move for a marketing professional with over 10 years experience nor a good image for CodeWeavers.

It is hard for me to think that this type of customer engagement Is this part of CodeWeavers rebranding strategy, if it is part of the rebranding strategy then management needs to rethink that strategy.

Wait, Crossover will work on Apple Silicon? What, through Rosetta 2? What will happen when, inevitably, Apple kills Rosetta 2 support?

Also: I generally agree with what Jessica-Marie Gervais said about the new website, but I’m not a marketing expert; all I can do is wish you well and hope it works.

However, I do have one semi-major issue: Where in the world did What Runs go? That was prominent on the main page of the old design, and was the #1 reason why I visited codeweavers.com. I also think easy access to that information was likely a marketing draw.

Calion wrote:

Wait, Crossover will work on Apple Silicon? What, through Rosetta 2?
What will happen when, inevitably, Apple kills Rosetta 2 support?

Yes, that is the plan. Apple Silicon support. If CrossOver 20, does not work day 1, we will try to quickly ship a 20.x that does. As far as Apple killing Rosetta 2, we will cross that bridge when we get there. We do have other alternatives like using a a different emulation VM.

Calion wrote:

Also: I generally agree with what Jessica-Marie Gervais said about
the new website, but I’m not a marketing expert; all I can do is
wish you well and hope it works.

We love our new design. It just represents us better as who we are compared the the old one. But as all websites go, nothing is set in stone. We will evolve and improve this new design over time. I've already been working on improving and solving many complaints.

Calion wrote:

However, I do have one semi-major issue: Where in the world did What
Runs go? That was prominent on the main page of the old design, and
was the #1 reason why I visited codeweavers.com. I also think easy
access to that information was likely a marketing draw.

It is listed in a few places, in the main hamburger menu under 'Support', in the Footer, and a tweak I just made, on the main navbar of the CrossOver page.

Reading Jana's reactions I think the only right thing the company could do is to fire her, since she's obviously not able to accept any constructive criticism, whichs means she's not able to learn. Such employees don't do a company any good.

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I also think people struggle with change...But it is good what Apple announced plans to transition to its own Apple Silicon chips?

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