I have been with Alpha5 since version 6. I currently still develop web apps in version 11. Since the move to Alpha 12 (Alpha Anywhere) I can not afford to continue advancing along with alpha versions. For me Alpha Anywhere is 15X more expensive then Alpha 5V11 developer and WAS put together and that is only one year. They basically priced an academic and freelance developer like me out of their product. I seem to remember there were a lot of people like me using the product. Have they all gone or are they somehow affording Alpha Anywhere?
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
Alpha has indicated that they are targeting the "enterprise" corporate world. Hence price is no object (apparently). Unless you're making sufficient money using Alpha somehow, it may be difficult to justify the extremely high prices that they seem to be charging these days. But if you are really interested, call sales and see what they offer. Maybe you'll get a deal as a long time user? -
Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
I am a new Alpha customer and so I cannot comment on what they used to charge. However I can say in that evaluating well over 75 products over a 6 month period and ultimately arriving at Alpha Anywhere there are by far and away one of the most reasonably priced products in terms of value on return. I found a few cheaper products, but the cost was not that much lower and when comparing what I was able to produce from demoing the lower cost products there ultimately was no comparison.
Can you imagine the time and effort that goes into making a development tool that handles web, mobile, and desktop with disconnected mobile built in? There is a very high cost to this and I can tell you from experience that if they aren't charging enough to stay competitive and continually advancing the product they face extinction as was the case with the product I used prior to Alpha Anywhere. The other company priced themselves too low and ultimately had to close rather abruptly.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
Nice to here Jeremy, can I ask which version are you using now?Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
I am new as of new today, so I am/will be using Alpha Anywhere V3. I just downloaded the product although I utilized the full 30 day trial.
I got prices on other software that makes Alpha look like a steal. Anywhere from 10,000 per year, 12,000 per year, 35,000 per year, 50,000 per year all the way up to 200,000 per year.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
There is three versions available so which one are you interested?Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
Alpha is facing around 3000 competitors out there at this stage. A lot of them are upstarts and some are much older than 10 years. some are totally open source. It is hard to strike a balance of price and hard coding work.
The newer ones are touting JS on both front and back ends. No PHP or other between forms and db.
Most all web side adheres to js, html5, jquery and css3 for much of the workload as I see it. That includes alpha.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
scrimej:
that's an average of 13 products/month. It takes me at least 3 to 4 weeks to evaluate a product (some took me well over a month) - you must be quite a genius.
Cars vary price in price from $3000 to $2.3million, depends on what you want to do with it vs the size of your bank acct.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
most cars will get you from point A to Point B. The style/speed you wish get there can cost more.Last edited by DaveM; 03-01-2016, 04:21 PM.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
Lets just leave Fiat 500L out from this speculation.Originally posted by DaveM View PostComment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
.They basically priced an academic and freelance developer like me out of their product
it is not their intention, with the ever changing market place and technology and just to keep up with that, they need more programmers with expertise in that area so naturally the price has gone up. they did not intentionally keep the price up to keep out mom and pop programmers or the ones who wrote their own software because they did not like what is available outside, it just happens. ( this is my humble opinion, not researched to come to the conclusion). if alpha does not improve their product they will be extinct, with the improvement the price has gone up too.
while alpha, probably, is best for the price, it also probably out of reach for many people too. like anything else you will be the one to judge which software is best suited for your own purpose. if you are wondering whatever happened to lots of programmers who used to be on the board. I am sure some moved away, some retired, some no longer post or not able to post.
c'est la vie!thanks for reading
gandhi
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http://www.alphawebprogramming.blogspot.com
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
The word evaluation is defined as follows:
"the making of a judgment about the amount, number, or value of something; assessment."
You are making assumptions about many things in your reply. An hands on evaluation of that many products for sure is not possible in 6 months. However a combination of being in the field for over 20 years, being with the same company for the past 12 years, and understanding technological and budgetary restrictions in place would mean that I didn't have to do a hands on trial of all 75 products which would have ultimately wasted valuable time I spent on deeper evaluations of products that did meet our requirements.
Several Factors that would immediately disqualify a vendor:
1) Price - Anything over 15,000 per year was immediately out no matter how great the product
2) Licensing - Anything requiring per user license fees was not a fit for us
3) Deployment - Cloud only solutions would not work for us, we needed to host the solution in our own environment
4) Perceived quality of finished product
Of the 75 products I looked at and spoke with representatives on, I selected a dozen or so for vendor demos. Of these only 5 products left enough of an impression to do a farther full hands on trial. I was not sitting around until the end and was learning more and more through the whole process. I assume that you would have approached things differently and certainly there is no exact science for meeting every need in every situation for every company/developer.
Wrapping us here, my point is that in order to find a product that handles web, mobile, desktop, disconnected mobile etc sub 15,000 per year with onsite deployment and no per user licensing costs resulted in a very short list that met my requirements. In direct response to your assumption of my intellect, no I am not a genius. However, I do consider myself somewhere between above average but certainly short of genius, smart enough and respected enough to be given the sole responsibility to select a development tool that my company will use for a decade or better. I was not given time limits as to how long I should spend, just that I was comfortable in my recommendation working within the constraints I've previously referenced. If you would like further proof, a copy of my notes with all 75 products, people I spoke with, reasons they were non contenders, the 6 products that made the final cut and were given an in depth look, and the actual ones I installed and worked hands on with I'd be happy to provide that to you. You don't need to be a genius to understand that.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
The new pricing model with three different flavors (about 1500/2500/8000) makes developer to a situation that Alpha is not so interested product anymore. For example to get Amazon S3 Storage Integration and OData and Rest Services Integration the price is about 8000. So in practice you do not have those features anymore. Also Phonegap and Offline sync is now 2500 just for developers license. So from developers point of view the subscription license is now so expensive that it leads to the fact that it just makes sense to skip one year and then maybe buy a new license. But no hurry. And you do not miss much because in one year period we get just one stable version.Originally posted by Hansolo View Post
And as I have mentioned before if you are using basic version all the further development goes to the pro and enterprise flavor. You get very little new features with the price of 1500 so again it is just better to skip than subscribe. I wonder have Alpha really though this change carefully and it impacts in long term.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
Now I understand the question. I am using the middle product at 2500.Comment
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Re: Has anyone else found it difficult to move up to Alpha Anywhere because of cost?
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Jeremy,
You might not be a genius (or maybe you are! :-) ), but there is no doubt you have a well ordered mind.Your methodology and exposition of the evaluation and selection of candidate products is instructive and can be used as a template.
Alpha Five is a great product/platform for the enterprise or for those independent developers who have a good client base and can afford the new pricing structure. From what I have read and my own lucubrations, I suspect quite a number of Alpha Five developers have been "expelled" by cost and have started to learn and develop in other platforms. I wish all the best for Alpha Software.
Regards,
Felix
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