Boomerang License / USB Serial Issue

[Alex_Pastuhov]

Dan, you are somewhat hijacking this thread: what Mr John D. Noll was originally compaining about was that this License had an expiration date, there was never any talk of any money - he never actually paid for it, his employer did, and he was apparently never going to.

And indeed, despite being named a "Subscription" and with this condition highlighted on the main Boomerang page, it has caused confusion before and perhaps we should really discontinue this type of license, despite the sound logic of your initial advice.

But coming back to the pricing, you are of course hand-picking your comparison examples. There are other examples of prices that rose at the same or higher rate. Plus, as we were practically unaffected by the recent GFC, our view on this matter may differ materially from yours. For instance, our rent prices were claiming up at a much higher rate than yours.

Gold comparison was just one of the views. If you believe in exchange rates, then here's another view: US$500 = AU$715 in 2004 at the exchange rate of 0.70, which adjusted for inflation and allowing for other factors ended up being AU$1,300 in 2011, which at the exchange rate of 1.10 became US$1,430. I hope you would not argue that our prices are inevitably linked to AU$, because we are an Australian company.

Anyway, the pricing point is moot, as the prices are self-regulating in a market economy anyway.

Of course, if your consulting rates were the same in 2004 as they are now, then this may seem excessive, but then the problem really is that your consulting rate growth was stalled (or indeed reversed, taking inflation into account) by other factors, like outsourcing and GFC. And so it cannot be used as a baseline.

In any case, if you were to face a scenario where the use of our Boomerang would make you $10,000 of extra profit, would you be hesitating to pay the $1,400 Subscription fee? - that's a rhetorical question, of course, what I'm trying to say is that your scenario is not the same as anyone else's and so you may or may not need Boomerang, depending on what you are doing. And if one year you do need (and buy) it and then the next year you don't need it, then this issue of the Subscription usually comes up. But then the next year you may need it again, as has happened before and will probably happen again, and then you come back and purchase it again. And knowing your modus operandi, I would fully expect you to drop it now and then re-purchase it again, when a new requirement comes your way. Because when you purchase it against an existing requirement, _IT_PAYS_OFF_ and when not, then of course it doesn't. And this does not have anythiing to do with its price, only with the requirements that you may or may not have at any given time...

[jdel6654]

Dan - apology accepted, however, its not the license terms that are so offensive here. Its the way Everest uses the fine print in the license to try to strongarm people out of a lot more money for fair use of these little utilities.

Everest products get people over little flaws in E1 technology. E1 has little technical gaps where companies get stuck because JDE->PeopleSoft->Oracle failed to fully support a technical feature that is obvious to any developer or CNC. For instance:
1. Job Q changes at the version level (duh).
2. Formatted reporting of version POs and DSs (duh).
3. Source code migration (duh).

So Everest has a niche. As you & others have observed, Everest utilities are expensive. Depending upon whether the license is for a company or for independents (contractors), this could be irrelevant if the product meets the need. For a company, sometimes its cheaper, quicker and safer to just buy the product rather than work around a dumb flaw of E1. Long-term, Oracle should fix the problem, but thats a different story. For independents, on the other hand, my sense is that the price for these products is quite high. Particularly when (if you are lucky) you can use these products maybe once every 3-4 months. So if you get a one-year license, you'll get 3-4 uses out of $2000. Kind of makes you wonder why some other developers don't give Everest some competition. I guess maybe everyone is waiting for Oracle to fix these .

What independents should know is that the subscription means you really don't own anything. The products are time-locked. I've helped spec contracts for a lot of software over the years for businesses and personal use. The big guys have time-locked features. The little products don't do time locks. The important thing I think independent E1 people need to know is that Everest fine print has to be read carefully and the licensing process is ridiculously messy (USB serial key licenses). If you expect your $2000 to get you something, caveat emptor, it may or may not.

[Alex_Pastuhov]

John,

Again, there is no fine print anywhere in our licenses: this edition is actually named "Personal Subscription" with the word "Subscription" used in its normal meaning. This is a single such case among all our licenses. It was originally designed for freelance consultants, but is actually mostly used for such one-off jobs as what your employer purchased it for.

Your employer knew about this, but they wanted a cheap temporary solution, hence they paid for this subscription license. Remember that this Subscription's 1st year cost is ~1/3 of the full price of this tool. After they finished using it, they opted not to renew, so it had expired. And then they illegally gave the now useless and unlicensed software to you, if they in fact did. At no cost to you, I should add. And then you have been abusing the grace period for a year afterwards. That about sums it up. What it is you are unhappy about with us in this situation I cannot fathom. In fact, under the circumstances, you owe us a year's Subscription fee for your usage.

If you now claim that you did not understand that this was dishonest, that this constituted piracy and was not legal in any country of the World, then this speaks of you and not of any non-existent fine print. I'm sure _every_ other developer understands what the word "subscription" means, especially when it's printed in large red letters across the main screen of the program.

As your employer had observed, it was much cheaper to purchase our software than keep paying consulting rates for the same work. This software pays off when used, so irrespective of the absolute $ figures it is what is usually termed "cost-efficient" and "inexpensive".

But of course, and I keep repeating this, if you are not really using the software to its potential, then it may appear to be too expensive for the task, in which case just do your cost/benefit analysis before you start and you would not have any issues with it.

And of course, if such software was easy to write, there would be dozens of vendors writing it. You have to first understand the complexity of this task, before you make any comments about the pricing or competition. This is specialized software, it has limited market and very high complexity, our pricing is probably an order of magnitude lower than anything comparable coming from any competitors. It's a fact. Look around and compare, before you make any such statements.

Anyway, I have no idea why you would bring up any such groundless accusations against an effectively innocent bystander, from whom you have also just pirated a year's license fees. Whatever your problems are, we have not caused them. The gist of your complaint is really that we stopped you from causing us more harm than the already stolen subscription fee for a year. Gosh, I would not want you to be our employee...