Annoyed at Actinic

[taliesyn]

When all of the features of V7 were discussed here in the early days, it was implied that there would be the possibility of entering a global discount code for loyal customers.

On having a look at the features page of the v7 beta, I see that it is only available on business and developer. We are using catalog.

We actually subscribed to Actinic Cover, more or less specifically to be able to use this feature, and are now confronted with having to part with more money to get it.

I am aware that global discounts are a feature of Business, however I was under the impression that the new discount structures were going to be implemented across the board.

There was no mention of any restrictions on catalog back then

[ljd]

I agree. At no time did the Actinic developers mention that the genuinely useful e-commerce facilities in V7 - such as the discount structure - would be limited to Business only.

What, pray tell, is the purpose of Actinic Catalog? Seems to me it's just a hook to pull people towards Business edition.

Liam

[SamL]

I might be wrong but was it digital downloads that was sold as an extra and then packaged as standard? It was something like that anyway.

Perhaps enough protest would get this packaged as standard. Afterall, its a common feature that almost anyone could use but wouldn't necessarily want to stretch to business for...

[cbarling]

This is always a difficult topic. If we have given a mistaken impression on which version the new features are in, then I would like to give an unreserved apology. If you have any further concerns on this topic, please contact sales on 0845 129 4800.

To provide some background, we only made the final decisions on the contents of Catalog and Business early this year.

We currently have 21 people in development - which is a lot to pay for. Actinic became profitable for the first time in our history in 2003 after 7 years development so we're not exactly profiteering.

The bare truth is that if all of the features that were provided in Actinic Business were available in Catalog at the current price, then we could hardly afford to do any development, and we would need to scale back support. The alternative would be to provide a single product at a price between the two, but that seems to give less choice.

We built Actinic Catalog to provide a comprehensive set of features to get started in ecommerce. We then provided Actinic Business as an upgrade so that when people's stores start generating real money, they can add more advanced features such as sophisticated merchandising and customer accounts. This way, you don't have to pay for everything up-front.

By the way, Digital Download is still available as an option on Catalog for £150+VAT.

The summary really is that we're just trying to make a crust like everyone else, and we're trying to do it in a framwework that works for everyone.

I hope that this background helps a bit.

Chris
Actinic

[taliesyn]

Thanks for your reply Chris.

No one's accusing Actinic of profiteering. It's just frustrating when you are under the impression that something specific is going to be included in an upgrade and when it arrives, it's not there.

I have been involved in the software industry for 20 years now, both as a developer and in management. As well as being part of the completely unrelated internet business for which we use catalog, I'm also the MD of a software company, so I am well aware of the difficulties facing the industry.

The features that have been provided in v7 look good and are very useful, but bearing in mind that discounts were touted as the major development in the new version, perhaps the specific discount features should have been spelt out in the first place. I and others could then have made a more informed decision regarding v7.

[cbarling]

Fair points and sorry for the mis-understanding.

I do think that it's worth noting that v7 Catalog does have quite a number of new features, including the major one of taking desktop orders. You can also now change existing orders in any way which wasn't previously possible.

Again as background, the development of the offline ordering capability took just as much effort as the development of the new discounting stuff.

However, I do understand that this doesn't address your original point so I understabd your frustration.

Chris
Actinic