Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

[tcausey]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

I care for a couple of reasons.

First, the success of Alpha Five may well hinge in no small part on their licensing scheme. I started to go into this in more depth but for now I will leave it at that. Suffice it to say if you extend this in a number of ways it becomes clear just how much this could impact Alpha Five users.

Second, I would like to be able to go beyond our company's walls and develop applications for others either for our company, with another company, or independently. I've actually created a few programs for our company that we have never deployed in part because of support concerns. Some of these we were even planning to distribute to our customers for no charge. That's really going to be difficult if we have to work out payment and licensing for each location. On a related note, I have paid for Alpha Five (v5, v6, v7 and now Enterprise v8 w/ 5-user Runtime Plus) out of my own pocket. I have gladly done so as I've enjoyed working with it, hoping for certain future changes and dreaming about the possibilities. (On a related note, I have always been very appreciative of the special discounted pricing Alpha Five has made available.)

Are my wishes and/or needs a reason to reconsider Alpha Five licensing? No, not really. But I believe the variety of scenarios that could be run based upon the current proposed scheme in combination with the cost of availabile substitutes should be taken into consideration. I'm just not convinced that the proposed pricing scheme for v9 will result in the desired outcomes for Alpha Five.

Tom

[Bill Griffin]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

I'm just not convinced that the proposed pricing scheme for v9 will result in the desired outcomes for Alpha Five.

Tom

Tom,

It sounded from your previous post that you didn't care


We all wait, impatiently, to see where Alpha will go with this. There are almost as many opinions as to how Alpha should be priced as there are people who have aired their concerns. It is not going to be easy (or possible) to please everyone. But they are listening. When was the last time you has the co-chairman of a software company respond to the complaints of users, personally and so quickly as Richard has? I am encouraged that Alpha will come through and try to make things as right as they can.

Unfortuanetly what has gotten lost in the pricing mess, are the features in V9. V9 really brings some very cool features back to the desktop environment, as well as some great improvements to the web side as well.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

But they are listening. When was the last time you has the co-chairman of a software company respond to the complaints of users, personally and so quickly as Richard has? I am encouraged that Alpha will come through and try to make things as right as they can.

Quite, I knew they were flexible but really hadn't expected the quick response and, regardless of whether or not they come up with anything to satisfy everyone on most counts, willingness to offer alternatives or flat prices instead of the initial case by case basis OEM license etc.

Unfortuanetly what has gotten lost in the pricing mess, are the features in V9. V9 really brings some very cool features back to the desktop environment, as well as some great improvements to the web side as well.

Indeed - also, albeit at the moment sans genies/GUI, some of the AJAX stuff like the tree control, will genuinely make for some great opportunities for moving functionality onto the web.

I do wonder where Alpha are going with the HTML elements on desktop forms though. One would think eventually these might be 'exportable' to WAS.;

[tcausey]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

Bill,

It sounded from your previous post that you didn't care

It's not that I do not care but that I may be forced to not care.

When was the last time you has the co-chairman of a software company respond to the complaints of users, personally and so quickly as Richard has? I am encouraged that Alpha will come through and try to make things as right as they can.

I agree but at the same time I believe this can be tied back into Stewart's original post. Large companies (primarily corporations in the United States at least) are generally averse to both this type and level of risk. From an individual's perspective it is great that Richard and others at Alpha Five are so responsive. But large companies want to know with a relatively high degree of certainty that the companies they work with move deliberately and with a solid foundation. Does this always work as hoped? No. But they will as a general rule seek to reduce uncertainty and risk where safer substitutes exist at a similar or lower cost.

Tom

[Bill Griffin]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

I do wonder where Alpha are going with the HTML elements on desktop forms though. One would think eventually these might be 'exportable' to WAS.;

I would not be surprised if somewhere down the road that when you develop an application, then choose whether you would like to deploy as a desktop, web or hybrid application. Or this could just be very wishful thinking on my part.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

I would not be surprised if somewhere down the road that when you develop an application, then choose whether you would like to deploy as a desktop, web or hybrid application. Or this could just be very wishful thinking on my part.

Or at least, copy HTML forms from desktop to WAS - fingers crossed, eh?

[DaveM]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

I would not be surprised if somewhere down the road that when you develop an application, then choose whether you would like to deploy as a desktop, web or hybrid application. Or this could just be very wishful thinking on my part.

a very good friend of mine owns a rather large software company in Orlando, FL and all their forms for the desktop are being built in vb enterprise with .net on msde databases for web conversion. I don't quite know how that works, but he said I could sit with his head programmer for a day and should get the gist of it.

I would suspect Alpha is headed there.

[Cian Chambliss]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

Yes - HTML elements on a form are part of a move toward the eventual publishing of form as a webpages. Also reports are getting the same treatement as well - v9 supports embedding of a static HTML in reports, we hope to elaborate on this in v10 to allow definition of 'live' HTML reports on the web, which makes a great navigation interface when you embed dynamically generated links.

We have demonstrated internally that publishing an existing forms layout to a 'dumb' HTML is easy , however this is not a feature that is all that useful until all of the field rules & binding can be handled in by the code behind the web page as well (i.e. lookups, validation, calculated fields etc). We are well along on supporting a *lot* of these features through AJAX, but have done no work on the next step which is to add a module that will convert our existing field rule definitions to use our AJAX framework - this will be a big focus for the next release.

[DaveM]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

Cian,

didn't expect anyone to be here(idea that all were in the meeting) from Alpha.

Thanks for the info. Kinda figured you were headed there and ajax would be involved. you are ahead of where I thought you were. I can't see inside alpha, but the hint of html on forms struck a cord.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

Yes - HTML elements on a form are part of a move toward the eventual publishing of form as a webpages. Also reports are getting the same treatement as well - v9 supports embedding of a static HTML in reports, we hope to elaborate on this in v10 to allow definition of 'live' HTML reports on the web, which makes a great navigation interface when you embed dynamically generated links.

We have demonstrated internally that publishing an existing forms layout to a 'dumb' HTML is easy , however this is not a feature that is all that useful until all of the field rules & binding can be handled in by the code behind the web page as well (i.e. lookups, validation, calculated fields etc). We are well along on supporting a *lot* of these features through AJAX, but have done no work on the next step which is to add a module that will convert our existing field rule definitions to use our AJAX framework - this will be a big focus for the next release.

Thank you very much for that, I suspect a lot of people have been very curious about this for a long time. :)

[mattdonlan]

Re: Runtime License Registration and Risk Management

Allen thanks very much for the question regarding version 8 and prior runtimes.

Going back a while there may have been ambiguity on this topic. It is for this reason we put this explanation on the order page for version 8 runtimes when it was first introduced

(reference https://www.alphasoftware.com/shop/index.asp# and then click on the link on the left which says "Guide to Runtime Versions")

The idea behind this was there were two distinct categories of developers.

A) Developers who sit down with a client and who build custom solutions for that client. In this case - the client should have their own runtime

B) Developers who develop a canned/pre-packaged solution that they plan on selling to a bunch of clients. In this case you may use the runtime to distribute the application to an unlimited number of customers

Thanks

Maybe its a language thing but this has never made any sense to me. There is (or rather can be) far too much grey area, in regards to what is a custom app and what isnt. What is the case for a canned solution that a customer wants to have modified? What if the customer wants 1 form changing, but another wants 50 forms changing.

What if you build a custom app, then decide to market it as a canned solution? In that circumstance you should buy the RT for the customer and then another RT to distribute it. But then again, what if a customer approaches you to ask for a custom app, and you realise it can be sold as a canned solution before you even start designing it.

Im afraid this definition is much too vague in wording and design and whilst it isnt something I have had to worry about I remember reading the definition and thinking O.o

As far as V9 goes, I am waiting to see how the pricing looks after Alpha have reviewed the vociferous feedback about the initially proposed pricing scheme.
I do hope the licensing requirement is at least better defined :)