I know it must have been an extremely difficult decision for Witango
inc, I can imagine. But it reminds me of a conversation I had this
year with a friend of mine who is a real estate agent hear in
California. Very tough time to be a real estate agent. He told me how
hard it was with clients, that kept chasing the market down. They
didn't want to put to low of a price on the house, but wanted to sell.
So they would say, lets price at $350k or whatever, and he would say,
if you want to sell, you must go to $320k or whatever. Then, after a
month of no offers, they would say, ok, lets go to $320k, but now, the
market has dropped further. So he says, no, you need to go to $299k.
They say, lets try $320k. Again, no offers, or slim pickins, and so
after a month or so, they decide to go to $299k. But market is still
dropping. In the end, they may finally lower the price enough, but
then people will say, why has this thing been on the market so much
longer than all the other houses?
I have seen the same thing happen at eventpix with image hosting. It
has become more of a commodity, and we have to find other ways to
monetize. The execs have a VERY tough time with this, and only lower
prices in small pieces, but never get down enough, to attract the new
people.
As things like image hosting, and web application languages become
more and more of a commodity, the ONLY thing worth anything, that can
be monetized in other ways, like support, whatever, is a STRONG USER
BASE.
One day, .net is going to be even cheaper, look how much the price has
come down over the last few years? ColdFusion will follow, or go away.
The only chance witango has to survive is to GROW its developer base.
Making its current users happier, and possibly stay instead of leave,
is NOT good enough. That server has got to be cheap, and be SUPER easy
to install and configure. It can't be anywhere near $1k IMHO. Make it
$499 even, and don't charge less for upgrades. Apple does that all the
time. Charge $499 v6.5 when it comes out, no upgrade cost either.
Without a GROWING, ACTIVE developer base, witango will not survive.
http://www.port80software.com/surveys/top1000appservers/
--
Robert Garcia
President - BigHead Technology
VP Application Development - eventpix.com
13653 West Park Dr
Magalia, Ca 95954
ph: 530.645.4040 x222 fax: 530.645.4040
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://bighead.net/ - http://eventpix.com/
On Feb 11, 2008, at 3:01 PM, Rick Sanders wrote:
Maybe this is a service WiTango could offer? If they would be
willing to offer WiTango hosting, say if you buy a dev studio you
get 3 months free, a server 6-9 months free depending on the version.
Yes, hosting is something that I take for granted because I host my
own servers, but there are many devs out there who don’t and need an
app server somewhere.
As for 2000, that was 8 years ago. Obviously the Pervasive licensing
didn’t work out for them. In those days us distributors were getting
30% off retail as our reseller discount. I’m not sure what the
distributor discount was from WiTango, so I can’t make a comparison.
But, this allowed us to offer incentives and discounts to customers.
We were happy making 20% and giving customers a 10% discount.
Given that, the new pricing is substantially less than 5.5. The
professional edition was $5136.00 USD and is now $1499.00. So, it’s
nice to see that after WiTango stopped reseller channels, that
they’re passing on the discount direct from WiTango. It’s still
priced higher than the mainstream stuff, and will be a hard sell
over other technologies. Naturally WiTango has to recuperate its
costs for development, but I feel that with a good marketing and
advertising plan combined with a lower price-point would bring new
developers to WiTango.
Volume is the key. Everyone doesn’t eat at McDonalds because it’s
the best food, they eat there because it’s advertised everywhere
(pardon the pun) all the time! So even though WiTango is the best
development platform, people don’t know it’s the best. Just my
humble opinion.
Rick
From: WebDude [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: February-11-08 5:42 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Witango-Talk: Witango Version 6 - Community Update
I agree with you Robert. The only places I can host Witango apps is
on my own servers. There really are no other alternatives except
maybe a few on this list. Funny, I host php, asp,and .net for other
developers on my servers, yet I could not, without a very difficult
search, host my apps somewhere else.
Another bone in the craw is the amount we spent on the original. My
problem is I have not updated. I am still running 2000 and it is so
stable and I have had no issues that it is very hard for me to move
on to something newer. I am currently getting around one million
visitors a month on 2 IIS servers (and one separate db server) and I
plan on adding another IIS server. SO this would mean I would need
at least two licenses, probably 3 if I cannot get an upgrade. I
bought professional 2000 back in the day. You remember how much that
one cost -- The reason I bought professional is because I could put
it on as many servers as I wanted. Of course you had to pay for that
privilage. Now I almost wish I would have purchased individual
licenses... it would have been a lot, LOT cheaper in the end.
From: Robert Garcia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 3:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: Witango Version 6 - Community Update
The thing is, even if the dev studio is great, and cheap, you have
to have places to host your stuff, and there are very few choices,
so devs will have to host themselves more than any other platform.
With .net and php, you can host all over the place, coldfusion, more
choices, but not as much as php and .net. The .net server, is really
just windows web edition, or $300. IMHO, the witango server, being
by far the underdog, needs to be at the highest point, $699.
I think these new prices are great, and I think they will definitely
help stop the bleeding of devs to other places who already have a
witango investment. But I don't see them bring in new developers,
again, just my opinion.
--
Robert Garcia
President - BigHead Technology
VP Application Development - eventpix.com
13653 West Park Dr
Magalia, Ca 95954
ph: 530.645.4040 x222 fax: 530.645.4040
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://bighead.net/ - http://eventpix.com/
On Feb 11, 2008, at 1:01 PM, Rick Sanders wrote:
I agree too, cost is high.
CF8 Server is $1299.00 full, and upgrade is $649.00
Visual Studio Pro 2008 $799.00 - Upgrade: $499.00
So, are we looking at Q3 for the full release?
I’ll be interested to see what the new features are, and test the
beta. Good work Phil!
Rick
From: GK [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: February-11-08 3:46 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: Witango Version 6 - Community Update
I agree with Robert. The server cost is still a bit high. The
strength of WiTango is the studio. It would be great if it could
export php code. Nonetheless, this is a good breakthrough and hope
to see the community grow.
George Kassyousef
Phenomena Technologies Inc
www.phenomenatech.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Garcia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 12:24:01 PM
Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: Witango Version 6 - Community Update
These are great changes, too late for BigHead, but maybe not for
others. I think the studio price is spot on. I still think the server
should be sub 1000, but just my opinion. Good to see the change to one
machine license.
What does "open sourced under its own license" mean?
--
Robert Garcia
President - BigHead Technology
VP Application Development - eventpix.com
13653 West Park Dr
Magalia, Ca 95954
ph: 530.645.4040 x222 fax: 530.645.4040
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://bighead.net/ - http://eventpix.com/
On Feb 11, 2008, at 4:59 AM, Phil Wade wrote:
> WITANGO COMMUNITY UPDATE
> ------------------------
>
> Th Witango 6 development project is now drawing to a close and in
> the coming weeks a full public beta of both studio and server will
> be released. The full release of Witango 6 will be accompanied by
> significant changes to both pricing and licensing, we therefore
> take this opportunity to update the community as we move forward.
>
>
> New Licensing
> -------------
> Once the beta testing has been completed and version 6 goes into
> release, the source code for both the server and studio will be open
> sourced under its own license. Witango will continue to be a
> commercial product and a license will need to be purchased. There
> will be 3 editions of the Server:
>
> The Lite edition - no change to current license conditions
> The Developer edition - no change to current license conditions.
> The Professional edition - single machine license, with no
> limitation on number of processes or CPUs.
>
>
> New Pricing
> -----------
> Witango Studio v6 US$199
>
> Witango Studio upgrade - US$99
>
> Witango Server Lite - Free
> Witango Server Developer Edition - Free with studio
> Witango Server Professional - US$1499
>
> Witango Server Upgrade from v5.5 - US$999
> Witango Server Upgrade from pre v5.5 - US$1299
>
> Those customers who own Witango 5.5 professional edition servers
> will have the option at the time of upgrade to upgrade their server
> to two (2) Witango 6 Professional edition licenses for US$1499.
>
> Witango licenses will only be available direct from Witango
> Technologies and no further discount will apply.
>
>
> Your Enquiries
> -----------
> A comprehensive outline of new features will be available on release
> of the beta. We understand many of you will have questions, please
> direct them off list to [EMAIL PROTECTED] We will compile a FAQ and
> post back to the list.
>
> It has been a long term goal for Witango Technologies to move
> Witango to an Open Source product, with simplified and affordable
> licensing. Witango v6 therefore represents a major milestone for
> us. We would also take his opportunity to thank our development
> team who have worked with consistent enthusiasm and considerable
> effort in preparing the code for open source.
>
>
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