Actinic Cover

[leehack]

I maybe wrong Dazza, that's just how i have seen it. If not though, then surely everyone would wait til new version released, then buy cover and get the new version at a reduced price?

[leehack]

I am confused a bit now, but that aint hard

Somebody on V7 now who wants to upgrade, can buy V8 now and also get a free upgrade to V9 when it is released. So you can jump 2 versions in one 12 month period basically.

[TraceyHand]

but isn't the idea of Actinic Cover to get "support"....with free upgrades?

Surely deciding between renewing and not renewing should be based on a possible need to technical support rather than wholely decided around when the new version is due?

That said, if V9 isn't likely to be around for another 9 months, then it's certainly money saving to wait say 6 months, take it out again and take advantage of the "free" upgrade when it comes along..and then just hope that between now and 6 months time, you don't need "Cover" support.

I only pay for cover on catalogue so it's a small price to pay for peace of mind for me (plus it just went down by £8 a month!) so I'd never cancel it anyway.. but I can see how more expensive packages could give rise to second thoughts.

I'm waffling..it's early LOL

[Jan]

You get a lot more from cover that just upgrades, discounts on my software and free emergency hosting for example, if your database dies, you can send it in for fixing. I'm quite happy to buy cover, the fee is worth it just for the customer support and I know that I am an unlucky bunny and the minute I stop buying it, everything will go horribly wrong and I'll noone to help (although I suspect I'd get help anyway :-))

I was a different story when I started out 5 years ago though - costs were kept to a minimum then.

Regards,

[Duncan Rounding]

If you stop cover and then restart it once v9 is released, i think you will find that the upgrade is not included. I have always seen the upgrades provided free of charge as part of an ongoing cover/support contract.

Come to think of it Lee think you are right. Got to weigh up the difference in months of cover vs upgrade cost then. For me cover is purely to get the version upgrades.

[Duncan Rounding]

Just had a look on the website.

As an example:
Cover for Business is 350 per year (without loyalty discount)
Upgrade Business to v8 is 350

Both the same price. So the only difference is the extra 'insurance' you get with cover.

[TraceyHand]

. For me cover is purely to get the version upgrades.

and I'm sure that goes for a lot of people. Me included.

The point I was making really is that Actinic have no real reason to look at the way they manage Cover (can't recall who mentioned that) because, as far as they're concerned, it works. It's paid-for support as and when needed with the added benefit of version upgrades included.

I agree with Jan though, it'd be sod's law that, if I cancelled it for 6 months to take it out again later, my site would go kaput the next day!

[george]

As an example:
Cover for Business is 350 per year (without loyalty discount)
Upgrade Business to v8 is 350

We have Multi-User with an extra pc (which we hardly ever actually use because two admin cannot do "catalog product stuff" at the same time which I didn't know at the time of purchase and was one of the main reasons for upgrading to M-U).

£550 less 20% making it £477 plus vat.

Oh dear, I'm angry again.

[TraceyHand]

Just had a look on the website.

As an example:
Cover for Business is 350 per year (without loyalty discount)
Upgrade Business to v8 is 350

Both the same price. So the only difference is the extra 'insurance' you get with cover.

and...the business V8 upgrade includes 12 months cover as well!

[siwalker]

We have Multi-User with an extra pc (which we hardly ever actually use because two admin cannot do "catalog product stuff" at the same time which I didn't know at the time of purchase and was one of the main reasons for upgrading to M-U).

I was wondering about that - so MU doesn't allow two people to do catalog maintenance? That's becoming a major bottleneck around here as our site is trying to gain lots of products whilst managing the thousands it already has.

As for Cover - I'd like to think that Actinic Cover will sort us out if things go badly wrong, but so far I've been very disappointed with the support I've had on non-critical issues. Our web business is big enough and critical enough that it's not an option to not have it, but frankly I think that's what Actinic depend on.
The last issue I tried to get support on is a classic 'not a problem here, try reinstalling'; while the issue before that was little short of a farce as I led some hapless support desk worker by the nose through the problem over a period of about three weeks.
So I'm paying for the possibility that I might get help in a crisis and for a bunch of upgrades I don't have time to look at.

simon

[Darren B]

Funny you should say that, some of my sites are still running V8.5.0 because i cant be doing with the hassle of the upgrade again.

I am in limbo, as i am having to run 2 pc's one site on V8.5.1 and 3 on an earlier version, they will all move but should i even worry about it now? on leave as is until V9

Decissions decisssions, support have managed to fix a database problem for me, took a week but it ment i could move a V7 to V8, last one

D

[Darren B]

Ed i only have Multisite not multi user but i have heard other people comment on what your saying

D

[siwalker]

Same here, V8MU MS, complete waste of money, we still have to sign off one pc to make the smallest alteration with pc2, then we have to send up from pc1 because to send from pc2 either takes forever or crashes.

That's very disappointing to hear. Presumably MU is just multi-user order-processing then.

Bet they didn't tell you V8 MU worked like wading thru glue did they?

And Actinic is normally so fast... I upgraded last month to a brand new 2.66GHz Core2 Quad Extreme workstation with 4Gb ram, because Actinic's performance was starting to become a serious drag on my time. The difference this PC made was noticeable but pretty small. If it's any comfort Excel 2007 is even worse <sob>.

simon

[Jan]

You are probably not going to want to hear this but my MU works really well and was definately worth upgrading to. I don't make a lot of changes to content on my sites but it is nice to be able to stay at my desk when I use it. You get one administrator on at a time per site (so 1 person editing content) and multiple order processors. Enterprise allows multiple people to edit content though.

Regards,

[RuralWeb]

Had my bill for cover the other day and cancelled it - I got a "Free" year when I bought the designer offer last year. I will wait until V9 comes out and see whats on offer then.

Is cover worth it - the $64,000 question? IMO it all depends on your skill level/business ie I never used it but some people I know use it all the time.

And yes it would be nice to be given a carrot by actinic for supporting the forum. Certainly this time round I will be leaving the alpha/beta testing of V9 to others as I wasted many many hours on V8 when I could have sat back and spent the time building sites.