Friend Weekly Update #8
(16/07/2018–22/07/2018)
Message from the CEO — Arne Peder Blix
Summer is upon us and even though we have a lot of activity, which you can read more about below, we are also making sure to rest up the crew for what surely will be a hectic Autumn.
The start of our public sale has been slower than expected, but we expect activity to pick up in the second half of August. Our conventional commercial business is thriving and this makes it possible to continue work at speed.
We are working hard to improve our ICO marketing and messaging and are taking steps to ensure we have the right suppliers and partners working with us.
We are also chasing institutional investors (professional capital) and hope we will be able to show acceleration in our ICO progress during August/September.
We remain fully committed to the project and are optimistic about our ability to fully succeed with our ICO. Recent articles about Android, Fuchsia and the need for an alternative, new operating system owned and controlled by its users is further emphasising Friend’s relevance, timeliness and importance. This spurs on our motivation.
At the moment we are unable to work at the speed we would like due to lack of funds. Once we reach Softcap, we can speed up our work.
To be blunt; We need your help. Your contribution/investment is needed, important and much appreciated.
Developer update
Friend v1.2 is on track, and will be a huge upgrade of the Friend Platform. It has a refactored Friend Core network implementation that will enable us to handle millions of users once we deploy on our clustering solution. Friend v1.2 RC1 will be the first release, and will be followed by a new RC2 before the final v1.2 release is made available.
Friend Chat has had a complete GUI overhaul, and the network handling has been improved. Additionally, we’ve added several usability enhancements, like pasting images from the clipboard into private chats and conference rooms.
The Friend Workspace has been completely redesigned, with new icons, a new theme and many usability improvements. Additionally, we have added and improved support for several applications, like Outlook Web Access, OnlyOffice and Photopea. Soon, we can proudly say that we may cover 99% of the everyday user’s needs.
Commercial update
We’ve started on a project with a new partner in New Zealand, which aims to revolutionise their national economy through bringing forth a new cloud based, interactive service network.
Friend will be pivotal in delivering user interfaces and functionality like communication and abstracted workflows. More on this in a later update.
We’ve initiated a new POC (Proof Of Concept) with a Norwegian municipality on the West Coast of Norway. Here, we will replace the need to access Microsoft Terminal Services for up to 85% of their users. Once we complete this POC, we may roll out to schools and other municipalities nearby.
We have also progressed on SoftMerging the web-based and Windows based software that is used by a Norwegian security company. This project should be delivered after the summer, and will result in the first commercial WhiteLabel version of Friend.
ICO Update
By contributing now, you not only get a 15% bonus but in addition, you are guaranteed your contribution back in the unlikely event softcap is missed.
We are really excited to have you join us on this journey and have got lots of amazing features and news coming up.
Media
AMTV did a fantastic review of Friend as a platform and our bigger vision. The whole video is worth a watch as Christopher really understands our project and passion:
We held our first meetup in Poland last week. We had a captivated audience who enjoyed a full evening of Friend demonstrations, talks and live demos.
You can view some of the live stream here:
Friend CTO Thomas Wollburg explains Why you might not always want to use Google Cloud.
Hogne Titlestad, Friend’s founder explains why the Internet and computing is a human right.
Join us on Social Media to follow our journey: Telegram, Medium, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, or our Website for the latest developments!
