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Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

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    Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

    I have been a long-time Alpha Four and Alpha Five customer. I am considering upgrading from Alpha Five, version 4 to Alpha Five, version 5, home edition. I am not a commercial application developer.

    I have two questions:
    (1) What is the upgrade cost for A5, Home Edition?
    (2) Would the upgrade purchase cost for A5, Home Edition, be credited to the upgrade cost for the full version of Alpha Five, V5, if I decide later to go that route?

    Art Cohen

    #2
    RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

    http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/alphaphorum/read.php3?num=11&id=28660&loc=0&offset=40&sortby=lastreply&direction=desc&thread=28660#MSG28681

    Lenny Forziati
    Vice President, Internet Products and Technical Services
    Alpha Software Corporation

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

      Thanks for the response.

      While the marketing of A5, V5 Home Edition, may have the potential to offer non-commercial Alpha customers a reasonable upgrade path, its pricing does not make sense. While I do not find the $99 price to be unreasonable, the failure to allow credit for the payment toward further upgrade to the full version of Alpha Five, Version 5, suggests to me that Alpha Software is grudgingly offering the Home Edition and desires to punish those customers who opt for it! What do I mean? Anyone who tries the Home Edition, and subsequently upgrades to the full version, does not pay $299, but in fact will have to have invested $398 -- $99 plus $299. This makes the Home Edition a dubious investment.

      It appears that Alpha Software has made the business decision to make Alpha Five a developers' product, and to leave the casual or SOHO users behind.

      It seems to me that if credit were allowed for the purchase price of the Home Edition, more customers might purchase it and subsequently upgrade to the full version. This would appear to be a win-win situation for both the customers and for Alpha Software.

      Art Cohen

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

        Arthur,

        This is from the q&a section regarding the Home Edition:

        If I purchase the Alpha Five Home edition and I decide later to upgrade to the Full edition of Alpha Five, what will it cost me?
        You will qualify for the Alpha Five V5 upgrade price.

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

          Thanks. I read that too. However, that is not fair from my point of view, as I explained above.

          Art Cohen

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

            Not sure what you think isn't fair. The reply clearly states you WILL qualify for the upgrade price of $299. What do you want?

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

              I want $299 for upgrade less $99 credit for the Home Edition should I chose to purchase that before upgrading to the full version.

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                Arthur,

                You want to purchase the full version for $100 less than the rest of us. If you purchase the Home Edition and decide to purchase the full version, and if they allow you credit of $99, essentially, you are getting both programs for the price of the full version and the Home Edition is "Free"!

                Basically, you want your cake and eat it too! Plus a discount! Both programs for $200? Surely, you jest!

                kenn
                TYVM :) kenn

                Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                  Ken,

                  Your concept is right, but your math is wrong. I think he wants both for $299, the upgrade price for the full version alone.

                  -- tom

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                    Not at all. I consider the Home Edition to be a crippled version of the full product, and a way of trying Version 5 without making the larger investment. If I upgrade to the full version the Home Edition will become shelfware since it will not be able to run applications produced with the full product. These are not really two distinct products.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition


                      Okay $99 is a lot of money.
                      Why buy (maybe) a wrong version and not use the free trial first?
                      Please download the full version and look at it yourself!
                      Most things are simple but unfortunately only after the first time

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                        I see A5v5 Full and Home as different products. If I had them both, I'd use them for different purposes.

                        We're all familiar with the many ways I could use the Full version.

                        I'd use the Home version to create an application that I might sell or give to a client, friend, or associate who was capable of, or might need to, modify(ing) the application and/or who thought they couldn't afford the full version of A5v5 to run the app.

                        That, to me, is a new market that I don't have with Full version (and no Runtime). So I still think the Home version is one-heck of a good deal and I'm recommending it to several potential new Alpha clients.

                        The way I see it, Alpha is positioning this entry level product on same "footing" as their Previous version of the Full product should one decide to Upgrade to the Current version of the Full product. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that - but I accept that the Home Edition is NOT intended to be an Upgrade of v4.5 - it's a different line.

                        I think this new Edition of A5v5 fills a significant niche - I am very pleased to see it and I hope the time to purchase is not very "limited" I hope it will attract lots of new users who can learn what the potential of A5 is - and I think many of them will have no hesitation to upgrade to Full version when they want to develop multi-user or more secure applications.

                        Why is it that some people can't just accept a good deal and move on, without trying to squeeze a little more out of it ?? I don't get it !!

                        My 2 cents - no offence (to anyone) intended.

                        Bob




                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                          Bob:

                          That's an interesting concept. Since I am a user who develops applications for my own use rather than for a market I look at it from a different perspective.

                          Art

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                            Art,

                            First, it sounds like you may never need the full version since you are only developing applications for personal use. You certainly won't miss the runtime and network capabilities, that means you're only giving up the Xdialog Genie. If your applications require Xdialog, and they may well not, you can still use Xdialog but you'll have to hand-code it.

                            But are you saying there is no value in having the Home Edition to use until the time that you decide you need to upgrade to full version? If that's the case, why not just save your $99 and wait until you're ready to buy the full version. That way you get full credit for the money you spent on the Home Edition ($0) and you haven't lost out on anything by doing without the "worthless" version.

                            I don't mean to sound like a jerk here, I'm just trying to point out that the Home Edition itself is valuable, even if you do in fact later upgrade to the full version. And since it is worth having, it is worth paying some $ for. It would certainly be nice if Alpha gave away all their software for free, but they probably wouldn't be in business for too long and then we'd all loose out.

                            Just my $.02

                            JB

                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: Upgrade Costs with A5, Home Edition

                              Jack,

                              I agree with you. In fact, even though I have the full version already, I'm thinking of buying the home edition, too. I'd like for my teen aged son to use his pc for something other than Everquest, so I'm thinking our little project this summer will be to coach him along the process of building his first database. The home edition looks ideal for this. It will be exactly what we need, at a reduced cost.

                              Furthermore, my chuch could buy the home edition and run any of my vers 4.5 applications, in stand alone mode.

                              -- tom

                              Comment

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