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New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

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    New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

    After almost a year of using A5v10(.5) and all its feature packs it became our intention to build the future of our small software company on it. So, yes, the tool is very valuable for us. And I support the idea of an annual subscription plan.

    But this offer, and the manner in which it is announced, creates not the feeling of certainty to me as it seems to intend: "You can budget and plan for the cost of your Alpha Five development tools".

    First of all the price is rather steep. I own A510.5 package with was and runtime, and subcribed to the "all feature pack offer". The new-UPGRADE-offer suggest that i should prepare for an annual fee that is allmost the double of this investment.
    And it seems not to make any difference in upgrade price if you only own the basic devellopment tool or also the all the 10.5 feature packs.....

    It is announced just like other offers, and by now I know A5 offers tend to become better and better :-). So here is my first uncertainty: wait or not to wait that is the question.

    Second. By this level of annual fee I would like some disclosure of other offers to come. For example what will be the standard upgrade price for version 11, what will be its basic new functions and what will be dealt with in version 11 feature packs.

    Third. The price of the devellopment environment is not the only part what I need to budget. Why not put in the deal an kind of subscription fee for our customers, who have to upgrade the WAS. Than I can take that also into account in the maintenance fee I charge them.

    Just my thoughts....
    Ger Kurvers
    Alpha Anywhere / V4.6.1.9- Build 6488 (production) / V4.6.5.1 - 8722-5683(testing)
    Development: Mysql, windows 10 64 Applicationserver: standard on Windows server 2019

    #2
    Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

    I get this feeling that soon Alpha5 is going to be extremely expensive....if the subscription plan is so much ! Ouch !

    Comment


      #3
      Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

      If you have not bought feature packs or other stuff yet for version 10.xx the price seems to be ok. But just this first time.

      If Alpha brings a new version every second year the price will be about 3000 per new version.

      And what about the WAS price. You have to buy it for every developed sites. Now users are installing virtual servers just like that with one license but if Alpha starts controlling this as they should a cost per running solution per site maybe means something to all developers in the future.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

        Unfortunately as soon as I saw that Joseph Alsop had been hired my first thought was that prices would start to rise. An ex CEO joining a team will immediately look at the bottom line and start to find ways to increase the margins. I am concerned that A5 has now joined the ranks of many development houses, offer a low priced product, get folks somewhat dependant and then start to raise the prices. If you are tightly intertwined with products developed using A5 then you either pay up or start again with another product, not easy. I hope I am wrong, watch this space.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

          Desktop Developers? Fair Play?

          Here you can check what progress has been made lately in your area. (Answer is almost nothing.)

          Comment


            #6
            Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

            The pricing sounds like it is within reasonable limits.
            There are a couple things that we should get if we are paying for the "Premium product".

            1. Detailed, accurate documentation. A lot of the questions here could be answered with decent documentation. If a feature (command, code, whatever word you want to use) was added in a previous but no longer supported version, rewrite the documentation as it pertains to version 10.5 or 11.

            2. Meaningful, accurate error messages.
            I had what I believed was a bug because the code was produced by Alpha5, but worked everywhere except on a button for the attached to that particular table. I received an error stating the filter did not return a logical result. If I had received an error message stating the alias name was already in use, it would have steered me to a solution a lot sooner.

            3. A user interface that helps eliminate some of the simple errors now that we are doing a lot more coding. You would not believe how many times I have had to go back to fix either capitalization or punctuation typos (missing ; often).


            4. A realistic estimate of how many new features would be added. The feature packs were coming out fast and furious until we had to option to pay one price to get all current feature packs as well as the new ones.
            Gregg
            https://paiza.io is a great site to test and share sql code

            Comment


              #7
              Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

              I am interested in more details of V11....specifically Server. My site is running into some performance issues with the current version of the WAS. It is using a SQL based backend but it locks up if it gets with enough users.

              I have a dedicated Alpha server and a separate SQL one. I am looking into multiple instances of server with a load balancer.....I am hoping v11 will kick things up a notch in terms of speed and the ability to handle more simultaneous users.
              I shouldn't have to be checking my site frequently to make sure it has not locked up from too many users.

              I come from a Filemaker background so I am used to an annual subscription that covers the new releases, etc. It works well but Alpha's price seems a bit high compared to Filemaker. Hoping that is not a sign of things to come. I remember that total cost of ownership for Alpha compared to Filemaker was one of the selling points.....literally.....hope that does not go away

              Comment


                #8
                Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                I am thinking that anyone on the automatic update for all future updates are feeling taken, feature packs were flying out prior to the auto offer and since then other than the features that we already knew were coming in the next week.

                I am thinking that I am done with upgrades until the post launch pricing starts to dive as always.

                I have more than 3 sites to take care of there is no way that I am spending close to 5k for this upgrade.

                To each there own but I cant justify the upgrade pricing as of yet unless there are some serious updates such as a was that can handle hundreds of clients and not what it currently is.

                The carrots are nice to dangle in front of donkeys but somehow either the vegetable has to change or the donkeys need to find some new treat.
                Chad Brown

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                  Originally posted by chadbrown View Post
                  I am thinking that anyone on the automatic update for all future updates are feeling taken, feature packs were flying out prior to the auto offer and since then other than the features that we already knew were coming in the next week.

                  I am thinking that I am done with upgrades until the post launch pricing starts to dive as always.

                  I have more than 3 sites to take care of there is no way that I am spending close to 5k for this upgrade.

                  To each there own but I cant justify the upgrade pricing as of yet unless there are some serious updates such as a was that can handle hundreds of clients and not what it currently is.

                  The carrots are nice to dangle in front of donkeys but somehow either the vegetable has to change or the donkeys need to find some new treat.

                  To each there own but I cant justify the upgrade pricing as of yet unless there are some serious updates such as a was that can handle hundreds of clients and not what it currently is.

                  -->V11 supports IIS so that will be a lot better to my understanding

                  cheers

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                    Originally posted by bea2701 View Post
                    -->V11 supports IIS so that will be a lot better to my understanding
                    I didn't see that in the promo.
                    Peter
                    AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                    [email protected]
                    https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                      I've been a loyal customer since version A5 3.0 and even before that with the dos release.

                      I feel a bit 'married' to the product but the alimony checks are getting to be a bit much. I don't make millions selling an application and I'll be lucky to sell a couple of 1.2k apps because of their uniqueness and not so much because of the platform. The selling price also has to include the a5 licensing and any other licensing for products used to complete the app such as the was, converters, etc.

                      Some software vendors charge for a license to use the product and an additional annual support fee between 15-20% of the original cost which includes updates, patches and upgrades.

                      I think these were the kind of fees that we were looking for with an anticipated full yearly upgrade and intermediate 'enhancements'.

                      It is a shame to waste my latest investment of 10.5 with the feature packs. I agree that I was hoping for a steadier supply of feature packs when I signed up for the all inclusive package deal.

                      At this rate, I'll probably get all I can out of 10.5 and wait for version 12 just to preserve my initial investment.

                      You also have to consider that some of us will be selling more product as not all was implementations end up on hosting sites but are installed on customer servers because of the data they tie into. I believe you'll be seeing more and more of this in healthcare as disparate systems need to be tied together as opposed to populating a database from scratch. Right now I have two web apps that have the potential to sell more a5 cals (to develop/debug onsite) and was cals and I can't tag $1500 to the price. It won't sell or my margins will be slim not leaving me much to pay for what I started with.

                      Get it down to about $800 and I'll do it today!
                      Creating Healthcare Work-Flow Solutions Since 2005

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                        Yep... the price is tooooo high.
                        To compare another software vendor (and who doesn't use more than one tool?), I use Clarion (Soft Velocity). They too have a subscription plan with 2 levels offered: Enterprise and Professional. The plan for existing users is $800 and $400 which gives you all the updates and any new version released.

                        Add-ons and 3rd party releases are purchased separately which works for us in that we only have to purchase what we need.

                        I personally feel the offer is being made a little prematurely. As has already been mentioned, will credit be given if you've already dropped some coins on the feature packs?

                        I recall that Soft Velocity went through a learning curve when they first moved to a subscription plan and I think Alpha will do the same.

                        Like others, I feel it is in our best interest to keep Alpha in business to provide the tools we need to make us productive but there's a limit as to what we will pay before we start investing time in other software.

                        As for us, we will wait and see how it plays out.
                        ~Joe

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                          Thanks for all the feedback

                          One point i would like to make clear is the subscription plan is only one option available for purchasing Alpha Five. You will continue to be able to purchase Alpha Five products, feature packs, add-ons, books, webinars etc on a case by case basis.

                          We know what we have under development and as we mentioned in the mailing, 2011 and the part of 2012 that will be covered by the plan will see an extraordinary set of great new capabilities and performance improvements released in the Alpha Five family.

                          In addition opening up the mobile market to Alpha customers will provide you with a seriously compelling advantage when talking to your customers. The analysts are reporting that Apple is gearing up to ship 6 million ipads a month - they shipped about 15 million iPhones in the last quarter as did Blackberry. In addition of course there are the other major players suchs as Android, HP/Palm, Nokia (symbian) and Microsoft. In terms of what customers are looking for, according to Computerworld nearly 80% of enterprises and a similar percentage of smaller companies and organizations plan on deploying mobile business apps that tie into their databases in 2011. In addition these companies report that they are already supporting at least 3 hardware platorms. This means that Alpha Five's HTLM5/CSS3/JavaScript approach to cross platform mobile development will be very appealing to these kinds of customers and will create excellent new business opportunities for developers using Alpha Five as their development tool,

                          Sign ups in the few hours since the plan was announced have been extremely brisk and we are committed to ensuring that people under the plan feel that are receiving excellent value for money!

                          I also want to a address one of the comments in this thread that speculated that Joe Alsop was behind the Subscription Plan and the pricing. In point of fact - Joe did not join the Board of Alpha to involve himself in these kinds of decisions and played no part in laying out or pricing the plan. The reason that Joe has got involved with the company as a Board member is that he has become very familiar with Alpha over the last year and more importantly has seen the development team we have assembled along with what is under development. He sees a great future for the company and the whole community of developers and customers who commit to the product. The reason why we welcome Joe's involvement with Alpha is that as founder and CEO of Progress he led them from startup to current revenue of about $500 million. He brings great contacts, experience and credibility to the table and this can only serve to bolster the confidence of future prospects who you might be approaching about selling development projects to involving Alpha Five

                          I hope this is helpful in clarifying things.
                          Sincerely
                          Richard Rabins
                          Co Chairman
                          Alpha Software

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                            Originally posted by kkfin View Post
                            If you have not bought feature packs or other stuff yet for version 10.xx the price seems to be ok. But just this first time.

                            If Alpha brings a new version every second year the price will be about 3000 per new version.

                            And what about the WAS price. You have to buy it for every developed sites. Now users are installing virtual servers just like that with one license but if Alpha starts controlling this as they should a cost per running solution per site maybe means something to all developers in the future.
                            If you look at the history we have a track record of delivering a major new version each year not every 2 years. Also I do want to point out that the plan is optional and is extremely broad in terms of what it covers
                            Last edited by Richard Rabins; 12-23-2010, 12:42 AM.
                            Richard Rabins
                            Co Chairman
                            Alpha Software

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: New subscription plan, leaves room for improvement. (imho)....

                              Originally posted by chadbrown View Post
                              I am thinking that anyone on the automatic update for all future updates are feeling taken, feature packs were flying out prior to the auto offer and since then other than the features that we already knew were coming in the next week.

                              I am thinking that I am done with upgrades until the post launch pricing starts to dive as always.

                              I have more than 3 sites to take care of there is no way that I am spending close to 5k for this upgrade.

                              To each there own but I cant justify the upgrade pricing as of yet unless there are some serious updates such as a was that can handle hundreds of clients and not what it currently is.

                              The carrots are nice to dangle in front of donkeys but somehow either the vegetable has to change or the donkeys need to find some new treat.
                              Chad as a single developer why would you have to spend anything remotely close to 5k.

                              a) you don't have to buy the subscription plan
                              b) you at most would only need the buy 1 subscription assuming you are the only developer and then buy additional was licenes as needed
                              Richard Rabins
                              Co Chairman
                              Alpha Software

                              Comment

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