Initial Support/Upgrades time length shortened for Community Suite,

[Black Prowler]

I'm looking to buy the Community Suite for a project myself and a couple friends are starting. I inquired about the pricing through my client center and after a few back n forths got the lowdown on the deal. On the website it says the package is $249 with a support and upgrade renewal of $25 each six month period. I also checked the pricing for the ip.board by itself. $149 a support and upgrade renewal of $25 each six month period.

What I'd like to know is when did ip.board (by itself or as part of community suite) go from 1 year of upgrades and support to 6 months? :rolleyes: :unsure: Honestly I think you guys are starting to jump on the american way train to give less for more money :( .....I can't even get a half gallon of ice cream anymore because it's 64 oz's now and even recently got cut back to 58 oz. :blink: yet the price keeps going up!!!......so in retrospect ipb is getting more expensive for less time recieved for upgrades and support. You really couldn't afford to give ONE FULL YEAR of support and upgrades for this product and then go to the 6 month cycles on support/upgrade renewals? So now it will cost me $274 for one complete year of support/upgrades for the community suite (or $174 for ip.board)......I love the hidden punch in the package fellas :rolleyes:

I'm glad I still have a lifetime license...all this renewal stuff starts to hit in the wallet after awhile. :(

[Digi]

It has been this way for almost a little over a year now. You aren't paying more, in fact you are paying less in the long haul than you did for a yearly license. Only the initial year "seems" more expensive. What is great about the new system is that you do not even have to pay for support or updates until you want to. After your 6 months is up you can go 5 years without paying again and then pop in and pay the $25 to get the latest update and support for 6 months. This is very much cheaper than the yearly license would have offered you in the past. Either way, many customers enjoy the new pricing and SLA structures and I would highly doubt that IPS will change back to the yearly/perpetual system they had before. :thumbsup: to IPS for making the move to a more professional SLA tier system.

[Black Prowler]

I understand how it works but I remember them offering a year of support/upgrades originally...now it's only 6 months the first time around......still ends up almost $200 for first year for board license unless you opt out of additional support. :o everything after that isnt so bad but they really get ya in that first year. :rolleyes:

[Rikki]

A lifetime license wasn't viable in the long term so we took the decision to discontinue that. The new license actually works out cheaper per year in terms of renewals - before, it was $69 a year. Now it's $25 every 6 months, so only $50 a year in total.

[Alex]

Digi, wasnt it in October it switched?

[Digi]

Probably right. For some reason I was thinking october of 05 :S

[Black Prowler]

A lifetime license wasn't viable in the long term so we took the decision to discontinue that. The new license actually works out cheaper per year in terms of renewals - before, it was $69 a year. Now it's $25 every 6 months, so only $50 a year in total.

yes I remember those were discontinued quite some time ago(I am glad I have one at least. ;) ) But when they converted from perpetual and yearly to the current license structure I could have sworn that the term of the initial license purchase for support and upgrades was 'one year' and then each renewal was a 6 month period for $25 after the initial term expired. Now the intial term is 6 months for the new license price and then for each subsequent term of 6 months it's $25. I'm not debating the extension of the license but rather the initial cost versus the time period given on initial purchase...I just think it's very high for the amount of time you get on support/upgrades initially. :cool:

that's my 2c's on it......we gotta buy it for this project anyway but my partners and I aren'ty thrilled the actual cost for one year turns out to be $274 for the Community Suite. :blink:

[Digi]

I just think it's very high for the amount of time you get on support/upgrades initially.

But wouldn't you also agree that a "new" forum is more likely to cause a greater spike in customer service than an older forum? I think in this way the cost is justified. :) And for correction, IPS never said, during the announcement of the new license structure, that the initial term would be one year. It was always 6 months. They did, however, say that yearly licenses would be grandfathered in to the new licensing structure, which was quite nice of them. If they were so money hungry, wouldn't they have required everyone to buy licenses in the new structure from the start?

[Black Prowler]

I haven't had a chance to get back to this but I finally made it back :P

ok on the ips side I can see your point but I am on the customer side :lol:

a "new" forum is more likely to cause a greater spike in customer service than an older forum?

well I would imagine so but ips is a big company...they should be able to handle it...if not hire more techs ;) On the customer side.....wouldn't you agree that a new board for a new user has the potential to have a lot more issues?....becuase a new usaer isn't as familiar with the software and may inadvertaintly cause issues. Also with the constant findind of bugs and issues and subsequent updates occuring on a regular basis there is more upgrades and use of support so it makes it hard on the customer to keep thier board updated if thier support time is only 6 months in the first year, thus making it more costly for them to run thier board in the first year.

Even a recent board purchaser I am helping with operations mentioned the current license as 'only 6 months now' so you can't say all customers feel this is a fair length of time for the money. ;)

as for the announcements regarding the new licensing plans...I couldn't find any even when using search....how pecular. :blink:

[rbiss]

I had board, gallery, and blog and was paying annually for 2 products and renewal on the board..and each had different renewal dates. I combined them into the suite. I think it cost an additional $50 (pro-rated the existing time left on gallery and blog). Now I only have the semi-annual $30. Made sense to me and still does. If you plan to use all three products the community suite is the way to go.