I’m a longtime Evernote user. I go back to the days when nobody knew who they were. I was a customer during their rise. Now over 16K of my notes and a new Evernote corporate management team later I wonder what the future is for the company and the tool that has changed how I stay organized. I read about Evernote users leaving after recent pricing changes, but that’s not me since I’ve been an Evernote Premium user for a couple of years. I believe in paying for software that’s an integral part of my workflow.

These days, Evernote serves as a repository for all of my article writing and project research. It saves me from browser bookmarks and lets me create searchable archives. I use Evernote on my Macs, iPads, and iPhones.

I’ve come around to minimalist word processors like Dropbox Paper and Quip but would never consider using Evernote as a surrogate word processor for writing articles and blog posts. When I crossed the 10,000 note threshold, it was hard to think of Evernote as anything else but a research repository. I even got away from using Evernote for note taking after I rounded that magic threshold.

Evernote as a company fell into the trap of trying to be everything to everybody which hurt the user experience of the core product for users like me. Their ventures into an online store, Evernote Food, and other such diversions seemed to steal away from the core product. I held my nose as Evernote on the Mac more bloatware. It was never clear if it was poor executive leadership or product management.

I even held out hope for Evernote Business, but even that never seemed to hit its potential. In fact, I wonder if Evernote Business development time would have been better spent developing robust application programming interfaces (APIs) for integrating Evernote into customer relationship management (CRM), sales enablement, collaboration, project management, and other backend platforms.

I spent some time using the OneNote Importer for Mac and even moved notes over to my Microsoft OneNote account. While the conversion process worked better than my expectations, I like having OneNote for just notes. OneNote has become my go to app for note taking during client calls and article interviews. A few years ago, Evernote held that title.

Maybe when the finally put Work Chat out of its misery, I’ll regain a bit more faith in Evernote.

Are you holding the course with Evernote? Or have you jumped ship?

Hi! My name is Will Kelly. I’m a technical writer and analyst based in the Washington, DC area. I’ve worked with clients like NetApp, Dell, and NeuStar to develop technical, training, and thought leadership content. My articles have been published by TechBeacon, Projects@Work, CNET TechRepublic, Network World, Toolbox.com, ZDNet.com, and others. Follow me on Twitter:@willkelly.

Image by Luis Llerena via Unsplash.com

Originally published at willkelly.org on September 8, 2016.