Thanks for chipping in Matt, I appreciate your input, and I hope I have not offended Adobe PM by suggesting that they have been quiet.
However, "talk to the sales rep" is a step that I don't believe many people will get to, especially the smaller dev shops. John and I seem to be in similar positions as technology evangelists strongly selling the merits of RIA and especially Flex but having to tack onto the end of our pitch "oh by the way it costs 750/developer for the IDE and 10k/CPU when we put it into production, so someone had better call Adobe...". It's hard to get the conversation past that. And I'm not suggesting you are trying to rip anyone off. I also appreciate that Adobe is not a charity and has to make money like the rest of us, I just think as it stands you have a prohibitively expensive pricing policy based on a model which has been shown to be unfavourable both for my customer and me as a vendor (Adobe are not the first people to have a CPU based pricing policy for server components). It would be naive to believe that it is not excluding a portion of the software development community and a big ask that everyone who does evaulation contacts a sales rep. Like you I think you have a useful and compelling offering otherwise I wouldn't be placing a large bet on it. The reality though is that I am going to have to switch away from FDS/LCDS precisely because of the effect on my bottom line. Adobe can choose to ignore that, but I doubt I am alone. Simon PS Anecdotally, my attempts at negotiating with the Adobe reps has not been an accommodating experience where they are interested in the merits of my solution, but rather one about the Adobe pricing policy (and their sales targets). And that is exactly what I would expect of a software salesperson, so I am not criticising that, just stating the practical reality. I have no negotiating position. --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, "Matt Chotin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > So I'm one of the Product Managers and we've said this repeatedly on the > forums, if you have a use-case and the price is an issue, talk to our > sales reps and see if something can be worked out. We're not trying to > be in the business of ripping anyone off, and we believe we have an > offering that is useful and compelling. We are always evaluating > pricing and distributions and will continue to do so, but I have no news > about changes right now. > > Matt > > ________________________________ > > From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of simonjpalmer > Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 10:47 AM > To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com > Subject: [flexcoders] Re: FDS licensing > > > > Oh boy, do I feel your pain... > > 1) Without breaking the licensing agreement I don't see any way round it > 2) It is a potentially very valuable piece of technology, but I am > increasingly questioning it, especially as it is is largely unproven > and still pretty wobbly (and confusing). It will be interesting to > see if Adobe have sharpened it all up with LCDS which is currently in > beta. I hope so. meanwhile I am engineering its demise in our > solution as soon as we have the absolute necessity to go above a > single CPU. > 3) There are some alternatives floating around. I suspect that a lot > of people (myself included) will go back to their server roots and > handle this all through HTTP. If you have any existing investment in > that technology on your server it is almost certainly worth pursuing > that route. FDS/LCDS promises a lot but between the pricing and the > opacity it is a hard call to make. > > Personally I think that the CPU based pricing is ridiculous and is > going to prevent the broad uptake of what could be a real > differentiator for Adobe of they got it right. Like you I have an > impossible task justifying the cost and I can't just pass it on to my > customers so it cuts directly into my margin. I wouldn't mind so much > if it was solid and proven, but it isn't. This whole problem stands > out like a sore thumb for me in what is otherwise a truly excellent > platform. > > Or maybe Adobe are just going to make it all open source and therefore > un-licensable. With Microsoft looming, that may not be such a silly > proposition. > > There have been other similar discussions on this board but nobody > from Adobe has had much to say about it. I suspect talking about > pricing on a technical board such as this is a no-no. However for > those of us wearing architect and technologist hats it is a very > relevant point and I'd love to hear from Product Management. > > Simon > > --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> > , "johnypboyd" <johnypboyd@> wrote: > > > > I'm having a real tough time justifying the licensing costs of FDS. I > > know it's free for single CPU, but the big jump (10k/cpu) for a > > multi-cpu license effectively kills this for me. > > > > I'm curious about: > > 1) How other folks have got around this? > > 2) Or do you just not use FDS mostly? > > 3) Or any other cheaper alternatives? > > > > thanx > > -jb > > >
