I am a solutions architecture consultant and have been using Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 since it first came out. In 2013, I recommended to a client of mine to install Microsoft Visio Premium. They installed 2013. I was mortified to find that the advanced support for UML and database modeling was missing. I told my client that they must have installed standard by accident. Because Microsoft would never lose backwards compatibility. I was wrong. They had installed Professional. The feature were discontinued without warning. A Microsoft product that is not backwards compatible. The master class list is critical to creating multi-diagram UML models. All of the metadata associated with a previous version of my UML file was destroyed simply by opening it with 2013. I found the change unconscionable.
I used the product to create new diagrams anyway, thinking that I would need to get used to it. However, I found that the product was riddled with bugs as well. I had created a large diagram with about 200 classes on it and many lines. One day when I opened the diagram in a manager’s meeting, my lines were all moved to seemingly random routes. When I grabbed the end of a line, a green dotted version of the line materialized where I had previously routed the line. When I let go, my line moved back to where I had put it originally. I had to do this with all of the lines on the diagram. This happened without anyone touching the model. The same problem happened over and over until I requested that my client uninstall Visio 2013 and install Visio 2010. I have looked at later releases but I will not upgrade or recommend that my clients install anything but Visio 2010.
I suggest that Microsoft repent of the mistake of violating backwards compatibility, and return the features that were removed by 2013. These features are important enough to keep me forever in 2010, or abandon Visio altogether for a more expensive modeling product. I would also like to hear the argument for removing these features. I would like to suggest to the management over this decision maker that they have some principles that guide such decisions so as to avoid this sort of backlash.
I have been a fan of Microsoft products since Windows 3.1 came out. But lately, I feel like Microsoft has failed to understand their place in the market. Stop trying to look like Apple. The reason the business world still uses Microsoft is because of backwards compatibility. Where do you think loyalty comes from? No one wants their software to change drastically especially when the change does not add significant functionality. Simply changing the look and feel is a recipe for sending otherwise loyal customers elsewhere. If you want to sell a new shiny, create something different. Stop messing with what people know and love.