Bonjour Monsieur Thierry,
I’m Fabiola Moreno from Sismo and I respond through this forum, for the publication of an email addressed to you. Although it is a professional and constructive mail, I think, from a purely elegant point of view, it would have been more appropriate to ask for our consent. In any case, the purpose of the email was to respond to your concerns as objectively as possible and to inform you of the software upgrade plans.
Because clearly, we have not been able to achieve that goal, seeing your reaction in this forum and that of other members, I will try to explain, hopefully better, this time, the circumstances in which companies like Sismo work, in an exclusive and reduced market.
Sismo is a company that wants to bring flight simulation to customers like you, who enjoy it, trying to have as little trouble as possible. But it is important that the market understands the rules and limitations we work with. Sismo is one of the oldest companies in the industry and we have introduced many new features and innovations over the years. We are so concerned about our customers that we try to answer all the questions we receive within 24 hours. We do not always succeed, but it is part of our DNA.
In this sense, we know where we are and who are our competitors and therefore in relation quality/price we are well positioned. As for offering operational solutions, please note the following, a flight simulator that is fully operational requires that both hardware and software have to be fully operational as well and therefore we have many limitations, due to, although our hardware is fully operative, it is not easy in this market segment, find complete cheap solutions oriented to real simulation.
In this regard, years ago we have decided go with high professional solutions such Prosim, where we have reached an agreement to offer comprehensive and operational solutions, which for some time now we have had the 737 NG and MAX fully operational with this major software provider, of which we are very proud.
In fact, we have developed the first 737 MAX that was integrated with Prosim. The same happens to us with iFly that through scripts available on our website, the simulator is fully operational.
Keep in mind that the low-cost simulation market, although it develops globally, is a very exclusive market with little production, so the costs soar, however, despite the increase of electronic components in recent years, we have increased our prices little, which is quite complicated.
However, instead of staying in a comfortable position, where we have complete solutions with Prosim and iFly, we have started new developments with other plug-ins not so suitable for integration with a real cockpit, but with great quality such as Zibo738 and PMDG. Please, note that these plug-ins are not designed to be used with a complete hardware flight simulator, they are oriented to be used through their own software interface. This implies limitations with respect to Prosim, because everything that is manipulated through the mouse, has to be done through a connector, such as SimConnect in FS2020 and datarefs for X-Plane and this means that not always all commands and variables are available in the interface. Therefore, in the OrbitXP and SismoLink manuals, we document which functions are not available, but not because of Sismo's limitation, since our hardware is complete, but because of limitations in the interface or in the plug-in itself.
As we said in the mail, OrbitXP was finished to the maximum that could be used with X-Plane 11, possibly also with X-Plane 12, but we have not verified it yet, although there are customers who are using it this way. Therefore, please take into account that the final result does not depends only in our development, it is important to have in mind which limitations have those plug-ins in the interface with external hardware. No may companies are offering a global solution for the complete cockpit as Sismo is doing.
Regarding PMDG, ditto, I understand that you do not have to be aware of the difficulties and many hours of dedication that we have to overcome each of the obstacles we encounter, to make it as operational as possible, having achieved in some cases that it is 100%. When we find errors in the interface with PMDG, we write to them, but so far, they have not given us a resolution date, but they have attended to us.
As we mentioned in the mail you have published, we are committed to upgrade OrbitXP to X-Plane12, but it will not be until we finish SismoLink, but I would like you to understand that messages in the forum like those recently published, make us wonder if the effort in developing applications, which are not easy at all, is worth it, because instead of being seen as an improvement over others, it turns against us, which I think is not fair.
Sismo is a company that has been supported in this forum, which we respect deeply and proof of this is that for several years we have a 10% discount all year for its members and we also make offers throughout the year.
We have hundreds of customers along the world and we are still here, due they have confidence in our solutions, support, innovation and of course we make mistakes, but we try to learn and find solutions. In this way, your concerns regarding OrbitXP, being not everything in our hands, for the reasons already exposed, will be our next mission as we have said in the email.
Currently, since years, there are complete solutions to use our hardware like Prosim and iFly and partially Zibo738 and PMDG.
If you have further questions, please let us know, but let me request you, with the respect that a small, but professional and serious company deserves.
Best regards,
Fabiola Moreno
(sans doute le Scotch et le chlore).
avec les développeurs, car il y a que chez moi qu'il y avait ce soucis ...
; 2 choses m'ont fait reculer : le prix élevé et OrbitXP pour les mises à jour inexistantes .
