Hi Steven,
This survey will not be enough if you want to achieve your goals. There are enough interesting threads and legitimate requests in this forum to give you work for a few years. Visiting this forum as often as you can will be a good source of inspiration. As an early user of the DxO products (since the beginning, actually), here is what I think about further developments of DPL :
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Focus on what’s really important and on what DxO really master : image processing. Don’t spend time trying to implement a DAM that will never reach (considering your resources) the level of the DAM module in other tools. Even Phase One is unable to implement in Capture One a catalog as good as the one in Lightroom. I prefer a solid image processing tool. I’ll manage my images myself. I would even say that you should release a version of DPL without any DAM feature. I’d prefer this.
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The DPL UI has to be reworked but I guess you know that already. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the current UI and they are piling up as new features appear. I have often posted requests about this. One good example is this thread : Make image browser window size and location mode dependent .
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Do not delay too much the support of Fuji X-Trans RAWs (actually, I mean do something quickly). As an instructor and animator in a very big photo club, I’m in touch with a lot of photographers (including professionals) and I do see how quickly many people are moving to Fujifilm cameras. Their success is based on very good reasons and no software editor should ignore this. I have myself sold a good part of my Canon gear in order to acquire Fuji hardware. This is considerably limiting my use of DPL.
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Do not rely only on user forum and beta testing to get feedback. DxO should organize meetings with users in order to facilitate exchanges. This is a good way to get a feel for user problems and needs.
I wish you good luck with your job.