How does this affect the OEM program?

On Jul 26, 2008, at 3:53 PM, Aparajita Fishman wrote:

Greetings,

Active4D v4.5 is at long last ready for release!

This release includes dozens of enhancements, new features and bug fixes. It's a must-have for anyone currently using v4.0.x.

Please note: v4.5 is NOT ready for 4D v11. That will require a substantial rewrite -- partially to take advantage of Unicode, partially to remove all dependencies on the Altura Mac2Win library, and for other technical reasons.

In any case, the web scene has changed substantially since v4 was released almost 2 years ago. 4D now offers the Web Pack and the Ajax Framework, and of course there are lots of great non-4D web environments out there.

I want Active4D to have wider exposure, because more users means a bigger community and that is good for everyone. In an effort to make Active4D more attractive to a broader range of web developers, I am considering a change in my pricing and licensing model. The new pricing and licensing would work like this:

Deployment license:
- $270 per server, keyed to server's MAC address
- no expiration, no yearly renewal
- upgrades not included
- support on the mailing list only, no guarantee I will participate

Premium support:
- $270 per year per developer
- gives access to members-only support forum where you can ask questions - I will answer any questions not answered by others within 48 hours (assuming I have internet access, I am often traveling)

Supreme support:
- $700 per year, up to 3 developers
- includes Premium support
- direct email support
- hotfix releases for crashing bugs and bugs with no workarounds

You may be wondering why I am proposing these changes. First of all, it is clear to me that $700 has become too high a price point for first year licenses. Second, a growing number of users are not renewing their licenses -- which is understandable, since most of them require little or no support. My original intention was to spread the support costs among all users, but that is not working any more, so my hope is that this scheme will be more equitable in that I will only charge for support if you actually need and want it.

I am very interested in your opinions on this, and would appreciate your feedback ASAP.

Regards,

  Aparajita
  www.aparajitaworld.com

  "If you dare to fail, you are bound to succeed."
  - Sri Chinmoy   |   www.srichinmoy.org


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