Upgrade From Developer 7

[theirishactinic]

fair

Hey,

I totally agree - Pay £1,300 for software and then have to pay an additional £450 the next year to upgrade it without warning. Perfectly fair in my opinion. Its the way most companies work.

www.actinicthis.com
www.actinicthat.com
www.idontworkforactinic.com

[jont]

Andrew - why do you "have" to upgrade?

[theirishactinic]

cost

Jont - i would "like" to upgrade without having to pay an extra 35% of the original cost i outlayed last year.............. i would "like" actinic to want to keep my business........

Andy

[RuralWeb]

i would "like" to upgrade without having to pay an extra 35% of the original cost i outlayed last year

So would we all I have built many Actinic sites and it still cost me to upgrade but I have already made the money back - if you are a designer then the costs can be recovered as jont suggested, if you are a site owner then you have to make a cost benefit analysis.

[pinbrook]

Humm! interesting read, nothing new though.

Simply a case of someone who didn't knw, getting all hot and bothered for no real reason, except to vent frustations...

Essentially V7 will be a stable platform for several years to come, there are still v3 sites out there (1998) for the record I still run a v5 and v6 site, purely because I chose not to pay for an upgrade when newer releases came out - cost benefit analysis.

Therefore there is no requirement to buy v8 - thus you are not being forced to pay from something you can't afford. You do not have a redundant piece of software if you choose not to upgrade. You were offered cover when you bought V7 and chose not to take it.

Actinic's policy is very much in line with other software vendors I can see nothing here to complain about. Its more your responsibility to keep up to date than actinic's to keep you up to date.

[theirishactinic]

hosting

Hey Pinbrook,

I see you supply "Specialist Actinic Hosting"....... thats great - well done! And mailing list services for version 8. Do you offer any other "Actinic" services?

Andy

[buspassjohn]

I paid for cover and after a year found that no calls were made on it and it seemed rather a waste of money, I did not renew and knew nothing about the Actinic discount offer for cover and reduced price for V8.
On reading the posts on the forum about V8 I can only come to the conclusion that the release of V8 was a complte shambles and pushed out early as a fund raiser by Actinic, I'm sure that eventually it will be a good product but at the moment it looks like a liability. I'm very glad I didn't jump into the fire with V8.
Save your pennies Irish and by the time Actinic get V8 sorted you'll have loads of money to pay for it.

[RuralWeb]

knew nothing about the Actinic discount offer for cover and reduced price for V8.

I agree with this point -I only found out from a post by jo!

[theirishactinic]

point

I paid for cover and after a year found that no calls were made on it and it seemed rather a waste of money, I did not renew and knew nothing about the Actinic discount offer for cover and reduced price for V8.
On reading the posts on the forum about V8 I can only come to the conclusion that the release of V8 was a complte shambles and pushed out early as a fund raiser by Actinic, I'm sure that eventually it will be a good product but at the moment it looks like a liability. I'm very glad I didn't jump into the fire with V8.
Save your pennies Irish and by the time Actinic get V8 sorted you'll have loads of money to pay for it.

hey there buspass,

Well i am glad to see i am not the only one who has been left in the dark about all this upgrading and reduced price offers. Your reasons for "not" choosing cover were the same as mine - i didn't see the need for it as it was expensive - and i never actually did take it out - and in turn didn't need it. Even if i had taken out cover i would of had to re-new it and then avail of the upgrade upon renewing.

I personally think Developer 7 is a good product - all i am saying is that it would have been nice to have been informed of the upcoming offer and price reductions - i really don't think i should have to rely on keeping an eye on this website for that. And seeing as i wasn't informed, i think it would be nice as a loyal and hopefully valuable customer that people in my situation were in some way compensated for Actinics failure to keep their customers personally informed of changes - and afterall, in my case, Actinic did display my website all over its front page as self promotion when it received a major award here in Ireland - and fair play to them for doing so!

I take your comments about the shortfalls of version 8 onboard, thanks for the tip off. It would be nice to be able to evaluate it myself though - if i could afford the upgrade price.......

Andy - Not Frustrated - Not An Affiliate - Not Venting Anything - Just Making A Point Based On My Own Experience............how dare i?

[theirishactinic]

So would we all I have built many Actinic sites and it still cost me to upgrade but I have already made the money back - if you are a designer then the costs can be recovered as jont suggested, if you are a site owner then you have to make a cost benefit analysis.

Hey Rural,

I am delighted for you that you are a very sucessful business person. Well done! The actinic logo looks great on your home page by the way. The logo sits very well against the background. Did you design the site yourself? Top job!



Andy

[fleetwood]

all i am saying is that it would have been nice to have been informed of the upcoming offer and price reductions

Hi Andy

The reason you did not hear about the discounts on offer, was because they were intended for actinic cover subscribers only, to the best of my knowledge.

For the record, I share Duncan's view, amongst several other more heated comments placed by others, that I jumped on board with V8 way too early.

Of all the versions, I think this has to have been the biggest shambles on the PR front. There was complete confusion on all fronts over the pricing and discounts when first announced, frustrating delays on shipping the licence keys (I waited 2 months for mine), and we appear to have a product that appears to be not quite as ready for release as one might have hoped for.

Having shelled out over £1000 to upgrade to multi site, and maintain cover, I can't now see myself actually using it for at least 3-6 months, as we appear to have a fairly unstable release at the moment. As Duncan mentioned earlier on, I would have been better hanging on to my money, and upgrading next year, when hopefully some of the more critical bugs have been ironed out.

Lets hope that some of the problems can be identified quickly, and look forward to an upbeat announcement with 8.0.4

[theirishactinic]

yip

Hi Andy

The reason you did not hear about the discounts on offer, was because they were intended for actinic cover subscribers only, to the best of my knowledge.

Hey Fleetwood,

Well i think that ALL customers should have been informed about the Upgrade - i really don't see why you should be penalised for not having subscription.... A simple email to their customers (ALL of them) would have made for better customer relations to me.

Again, point taken on the actual upgrade - also - if they had of waited till it was a better product i wouldn't be in this position now. It would still be nice to afford to evaluate it myself though.

Cheers

Andy

[pinbrook]

In all honesty, whilst I agree that V8 is not yet ready, the lot of the work put into it in the past 2 months would have only been possible by releasing it to the world.

It went through all the normal Alpha, Beta stages but its not until it hits its full potential market that the final bugs etc get noticed and subsequently ironed out.

I had intended to do some beta testing, but there wasn't any decent documentation at the time. And boy do you need documentation for v8. Coupled with the fact that to do decent beta testing would have taken a couple of weeks solid work - time I can not afford to donate to actinic for their quality control.

The whole timing of this release has now gone pear shaped, as the majority of experienced developers have had a go with the software, identified its short comings and said "hey, to close to Christmas, not stable enough to inflict this on clients. Lets revisit in the new year ,when we hope the bugs will have been ironed out." Quite who is going to carry on reporting bugs I'm not sure, but there are a few issues in the current versions to make developing a nightmare for budgeting.

It would still be nice to afford to evaluate it myself though.

You can evaluate by downloading a 30 day trial. At the end of the 30 days, keep a copy of site1 - I would say take a snapshot but this is bug ridden at the mo - and unistall reinstall and carry on for a further 30 days

[RuralWeb]

You can evaluate by downloading a 30 day trial. At the end of the 30 days, keep a copy of site1 - I would say take a snapshot but this is bug ridden at the mo - and unistall reinstall and carry on for a further 30 days

Actinic were also giving out unlock codes to extend this period although I dont know if they still are.

[RuralWeb]

The reason you did not hear about the discounts on offer, was because they were intended for actinic cover subscribers only, to the best of my knowledge

I was not a cover subscriber and spoke to Actinic at the time, they said that they had emailed a newsletter to everyone on thier subcription list which included everyone who had bought the V7 software regardless of if they had cover or not. For some reason many people did not get the newsletter and it was jo who asked a question about its contents which set off a thread about newsletters and the deal on offer.