Re: The Auto FE Updatrer will no longer be free

#1

On Oct 21, 8:11*am, Tony Toews <tto... (AT) telusplanet (DOT) net> wrote:

Quote:

Folks

Hows that for an attention grabbing subject?

Hi Tony. What licence fee will be applicable to a developer who
distributes the Updater to lots of clients?

#2

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:57:02 -0600, Tony Toews
<ttoews (AT) telusplanet (DOT) net> wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 03:41:29 -0700 (PDT), Wayne
cqdigital (AT) volcanomail (DOT) com> wrote:

Hows that for an attention grabbing subject?

Hi Tony. What licence fee will be applicable to a developer who
distributes the Updater to lots of clients?

I'm thinking a price would be $100 per client. But maybe that's a
bit high. I'm not quite sure on this. Maybe a graduated pricing
policy.

I realized that this is not at all practical. This would require me
being notified for each new client. And if I was to create a license
file for each new client this would mean you'd have to tell me thier
name. And I don't want to deal with that kind of administrivia.
Furthermore, understandably, you don't want me to know your client
names.

So a flat fee of some sort. But what is reasonable? Or do I have
some kind of percentage based system and trust that you the developers
will tell me the number of clients? No, you wouldn't want to even
tell me that. Also quite understandable.

So no a flat fee of some sort I guess. What do you think is
reasonable?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/

#3

On 21 Oct 2010 23:12:03 GMT, "David-W-Fenton"
<NoEmail (AT) SeeSignature (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Quote:

Well, for what it's worth, I won't use it in that case, and won't
have my clients purchase it, either.

Reasonable enough.

Quote:

I worry that you won't make any more than you're making now, Tony,

Yes, that's quite possible. In which case work on the utility will
slow to a crawl, rather than than the 7,000 lines of code I've added
since January.

Quote:

and all you've done is deprived yourself of a bunch of free quality
assurance testers.

True but if folks are paying for the utility then they will be even
more motivated to give me feedback.

Your points are quite valid.

You will always be able to use the current version 3.14 for free. I
may remove it from my website as I usually do with the second oldest
version as I put out new versions.

Tony

--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/

#4

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:27:45 -0700, Salad <salad (AT) oilandvinegar (DOT) com>
wrote:

Quote:

You were musing on pricing. Perhaps 2 types; professional (developer)
and single site (user). A professional for someone that can distribute
to unlimited companies, user for one company's use.

Another possible name might "Remote Edition" for the version which an
outside contractor creates versions or ISV.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/

#5

Tony, your work is brilliant, and I see no reason you can't charge for
it.

Careful of your stats. Some large percentage of downloads probably
never get implemented, so their payment of a fee would not be
appropriate.

Having said that, I haven't paid you, but I had planned when moving to
the next version to license your Professional version. I'll bill it to
my client "under the covers".

Take a look at VBAGlobalErrorHandler for an example of a pretty well-
thought-out licensing structure. Its still relies on some trust, but I
think it's worked out for me and my client.

Jim

#6

Tony Toews wrote:

Quote:

Can AutoFE be expanded to other programs? i don't know.

Yes. That's one reason why I added the Start Method = Display File
Count Message. This way it doesn't actually start a program such as
Access, Excel, Word, whatever. It just states "All files are up to
date" or "x files copied".

I also own the www.autofileupdater.com domain. <smile

Does FileMaker
or other database programs require easy distrubution as well?

Apparently FileMaker has the capabliity built ni.

Maybe
other developers here know of other programs that require easy
distribution. Would an IT department that distributes apps to new
end-users need something like this?

Awaiting suggestions. <smile

Hopefully you'll get some suggestions. Limiting to Accesss, well,
that's limited. Useful for many apps and programs? That's where you
want to be. I'd be a poor person to suggest names of apps that would
benefit but Cheryl mentioned some others. THe more flexibility the
better. Getting the message out can pay off.

#7

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 06:33:21 -0700 (PDT), Cheryl
<cheryl5948 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Tony, your work is brilliant, and I see no reason you can't charge for
it.

Careful of your stats. Some large percentage of downloads probably
never get implemented, so their payment of a fee would not be
appropriate.

True enough.

Quote:

Having said that, I haven't paid you, but I had planned when moving to
the next version to license your Professional version. I'll bill it to
my client "under the covers".

Take a look at VBAGlobalErrorHandler for an example of a pretty well-
thought-out licensing structure. Its still relies on some trust, but I
think it's worked out for me and my client.

So you're thinking of the page at
http://www.everythingaccess.com/vbwatchdog_purchase.htm ?

Yes, I have no problem with such a system. Indeed I'm doing
something similar when I ask you to indicate how many servers you are
using the Auto FE Updater on.

But could you be a bit more specific in your thoughts? Do you mean by
number of users of the utility? If you are a outside contractor the
number of clients? Total number of users among all the clients?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/

#8

"agiamb" <NOSPAMagiamb (AT) newsgroup (DOT) nospam> wrote

Quote:

Tony,

I used it several years ago (when it was very simple) with a couple of
clients (now out of business due to the economy), and it did all I
needed.
I would have no problem paying a reasonable, one-time fee for
distribution rights.
As a matter of fact I will soon be rolling out a major upgrade at a
client and have been considering using the FE Updater.
My only hesitation is that there has been so much added to it, and I
am only interested in simple distribution, like the old one did.

"Simple distribution" is the way I use it. Believe me ... the setup is
WAY easier now than it was back then.

Download it and take it for a test drive!

--
Clif McIrvin

(clare reads his mail with moe, nomail finds the bit bucket :-)

#9

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:54:30 -0400, "agiamb"
<NOSPAMagiamb (AT) newsgroup (DOT) nospam> wrote:

Quote:

I used it several years ago (when it was very simple) with a couple of
clients (now out of business due to the economy), and it did all I needed.
I would have no problem paying a reasonable, one-time fee for distribution
rights.
As a matter of fact I will soon be rolling out a major upgrade at a client
and have been considering using the FE Updater.
My only hesitation is that there has been so much added to it, and I am only
interested in simple distribution, like the old one did.

Using the wizard to set things up is about as simple as you can get.
You don't need to use any of the options.

Although setting up a user new to your application by having the Auto
FE Updater create an email in your email client is, I think, a very
nice time saving feature. All you need to do is click on a few
buttons and key in the persons email address. Then all they need to
do is to click on the hyperlink embedded in the email and now they can
run your Access app.

And I have Clif, who also responded to your posting, to thank for
asking some good questions of me and in an Outlook newsgroup.

If you persevered the old way manually typing in the entries in the
INI file and trying, trying again until it worked good for you!
<smile> But you should get going with a new app in about two minutes
I hope.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/

#10

On 24 Oct 2010 02:06:11 GMT, "David-W-Fenton"
<NoEmail (AT) SeeSignature (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Quote:

but setting up a new
users seems to me like something peripheral, and oughtn't be in the
updater proper.

But it's a huge time saver and very convenient. I've had a number of
comments specifically on that. Yes, it's not part of the basic
functiona

Quote:

I think a shareware model might be better for yours, or the pay
version having features that the free one lacks. But then, how much
time does it take to re-architect to work that way? Is it worth the
time to get your utility more widely distributed for basic
functionality?

Shareware/trialware is the model I'm seriously considering going to.
It will continue to work but, after the 15 or 30 days, the developer
and the user will see nag messages.

Pay version which has features that the free ones lack is the
Enterprise Edition which I currently have available. But that hasn't
sold very many licenses. So do I move more features from the free
version? If so which features?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/