Upcoming change in CQC pricing

[Dean Roddey]

Dean-

What is meant by this statement ?

There will likely be some small fee for major version upgrades. But, since everyone is now going to be paying per component, we can't just let everyone else have them for free. It wouldn't be fair. So new components will be made available for a price. A discount for existing customers of course.

Are you talking about the drivers? Or for each PC / touchscreen?

Steve

Not drivers but the separate components, i.e. scheduled/triggered events, XML Gateway, web server, logic server, etc... Those have always been separately licensed, we just chose for a long time to have a single price that included them all. In order to allow the price to scale more up and down for the pro systems, we will go back to charging per component, instead of a one size fits all price, since really one size fits far less than all.

There will be a per client charge as well. Ultimately, the number of clients is the best measure of the size of the system, i.e. how much the price is going to be for a pro installation. Small systems have a few, big systems tend to have a lot. That's not always true and there are some pathological situations where there might be a single client controlling a lot of stuff. However we will also license not the drivers but the number of drivers, to cover that. But, for most folks, the number of drivers included in the base system price will be plenty and they won't need to spend any more on that front. It's more to deal with things like an industrial scenario where a single operator screen might be driving a system controlling 50 devices or some such thing.

But, for the most part, number of clients represents the size of the system, and we've chosen primarily to scale the price in the upwards direction based on number of clients. For wireless clients that aren't always connected, such as phones that you'd use when away from the house or something, you can treat that like a 'pool' of available connections and not necesarily buy a license for every one of them that might be used. For full time connected clients, you'll need a license for each of those.

So, ultimately there are only three things involved. Which components do you need, how many drivers do you need, and how many clients do you need.

 

[Scrambled]

Dean-

I am one of the people who also bought both Main Lobby, and HomeSeere-- and ended up switching to CQC because of the way the pricing structure changed. For me, I purchased CQC when you offered the pre-sale for 3.0 I went into it knowing that I was going to pay a flat up-front fee for the program, and a yearly maintenance fee to cover any of the new drivers that I wanted. I am ok with that, I agreed to that.

My biggest concern is that now, I feel like you are in the same boat as both HS and ML. That is why I switched from both of those. Everytime I wanted to add something to my system it was another $20-40.

I would rather pay a larger maintenance fee (not too much more) than having to pay a'la carte


Steve

 

[Dean Roddey]

Dean-

I am one of the people who also bought both Main Lobby, and HomeSeere-- and ended up switching to CQC because of the way the pricing structure changed. For me, I purchased CQC when you offered the pre-sale for 3.0 I went into it knowing that I was going to pay a flat up-front fee for the program, and a yearly maintenance fee to cover any of the new drivers that I wanted. I am ok with that, I agreed to that.

My biggest concern is that now, I feel like you are in the same boat as both HS and ML. That is why I switched from both of those. Everytime I wanted to add something to my system it was another $20-40.

I would rather pay a larger maintenance fee (not too much more) than having to pay a'la carte

Steve

But as an existing customers you already own the whole thing anyway, without any limits. As I said above though, we will honor any mainteance fees paid before the changeover, until they expire. So you are free to pay for some years ahead under the current scheme and that will cover you for that period of time. You'd get all the new stuff and new releases that come out during that period, as you do now under the current scheme.

But, there's just no way to have a workable system without doing this. With a single monolithic price, we can't scale the price down based on features or up based on capacity. And we need to be able to do that. Even if we were to just go purely with professionals, it would still be necessary, since many of them want to have the option to sell smaller systems and our one price fits all system just won't work in that case.

 

[charliebarns]

Dean-

I am one of the people who also bought both Main Lobby, and HomeSeere-- and ended up switching to CQC because of the way the pricing structure changed. For me, I purchased CQC when you offered the pre-sale for 3.0 I went into it knowing that I was going to pay a flat up-front fee for the program, and a yearly maintenance fee to cover any of the new drivers that I wanted. I am ok with that, I agreed to that.

My biggest concern is that now, I feel like you are in the same boat as both HS and ML. That is why I switched from both of those. Everytime I wanted to add something to my system it was another $20-40.

I would rather pay a larger maintenance fee (not too much more) than having to pay a'la carte

Steve

But as an existing customers you already own the whole thing anyway, without any limits. As I said above though, we will honor any mainteance fees paid before the changeover, until they expire. So you are free to pay for some years ahead under the current scheme and that will cover you for that period of time. You'd get all the new stuff and new releases that come out during that period, as you do now under the current scheme.

But, there's just no way to have a workable system without doing this. With a single monolithic price, we can't scale the price down based on features or up based on capacity. And we need to be able to do that. Even if we were to just go purely with professionals, it would still be necessary, since many of them want to have the option to sell smaller systems and our one price fits all system just won't work in that case.

I'm also one who purchased pre 3.0 release as we were told the price3 was going up when 3.0 was released. I purchased under the understanding that there would be a yearly licensing fee but that was it. Now you're saying the only way you'll honor that is we have to purchase the yearly license now, and purchase several years at a time, in order to have you stick to the original agreement?


CB

 

[Dean Roddey]

I'm also one who purchased pre 3.0 release as we were told the price3 was going up when 3.0 was released. I purchased under the understanding that there would be a yearly licensing fee but that was it. Now you're saying the only way you'll honor that is we have to purchase the yearly license now, and purchase several years at a time, in order to have you stick to the original agreement?

No, that's not what I said. I regret even having posted this now.

There won't be any fee at all in the new scheme. I said that we will honor any currently paid maintenance fees until they expire. If you just want to pay ahead now before we stop doing the mainteance fee thing, then you are free to do it, if you feel that would be to your advantage. You'll get any new stuff that comes out in that period you covered.

After your current maintenance fee coverage expires, then you can just buy new stuff that comes out if you want or need it. If you don't want or need it, just don't buy it. You will have more choice in the matter basically than you do now. In the current fee based system, you have to pay for stuff whether you want it or not.

If you are of the sort who tends to want to use any new stuff that comes out, you can go ahead and pre-pay some maintenance fee years. That's always been an option and you've always gotten a discount for doing that. Many people do it already. Since we are honoring any outstanding fees, you'll remain covered in the current sort of way until that coverage runs out, and you'll save some bucks long term.

But, ultimately, we will stop accepting the maintenance fees when 3.2 comes out, and move to the 'buy it if you want it' scheme for any new customers. Existing customers will move to that scheme once their maint fee coverage runs out.

 

[beelzerob]

I think, if I may paraphrase, that the two arguments are this:

Dean: When you were paying the mandatory yearly maintenance fee, you were receiving new content without having to pay for it individually. That is not working out as has been desired (mainly for pros). For as long as your maintenance fees are still paid up, you will continue to receive new content without having to pay anything individually. However, after 3.2, you will not be able to pay a maintenance fee anymore, so that means once your paid-up maintenance fees run out, then you will have to purchase new content if you so desire. So, if paying for new content is odius to you, then pay as far in advance as you want now in maintenance fees, and that will mean many years for you of not having to worry about pay-for-content. However, you will still one day run out of paid maintenance, and then you will be in the pay-for-content system whether you want it or not.

Others: We came to CQC because you offered us a subscription-type of pay model via the maintenance fee, so that it didn't feel like we were being nickeled and dimed to death for each little upgrade, as in other HA software. We feel in a way that we were "lured" into the maintenance fee idea (which we preferred), and now that we've committed time and money to CQC, we're going to end up back in the system we tried to escape from in the first place. It just feels like a bait-and-switch.


Now, I'm neither Dean nor Others, so I'm not taking any sides, and I hope I've summarized the feelings correctly on both sides. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It just feels like you two are missing each other on this. Maybe this will help fill in some blanks.


I think I like the idea of paying for a certain number of clients, and even installed drivers, and I agree with Dean that the price should scale up for larger systems, and I'm hoping the "base" number of those two things means I'll be ok in my little bitty home install. To me it really doesn't seem quite right that I'd pay the same for CQC as "Cluckers sports bar" does for their install....we're clearly on two different levels of use.

Dean, a couple questions I have. The "pay for changes" we'll be going to....is it just for major components? Those don't happen very often, right? I mean, I think the RIVA and Logic Server were some of the most recent ones. But most updates on the 1/10ths version level won't mean a new component, correct?

In your opinion, in any given year, how do you think the cost of paying for every new thing that comes out will compare to the $95/year maintenance fee? Will it be a wash?

 

[sic0048]

I'd be curious to see the final details - especially the "standard" content levels and how much the license covers. When I started with CQC, I had very, very few controllable devices. However, over the 5 years or so that I have been using CQC, the number of devices has grown. I honestly don't know how many drivers I currently use, but I would bet it is 15-25 and I still have lots of room to grow. I don't do any lighting control, power monitoring, etc, etc, etc. So if 50 drivers is considered "industrial" then I suspect most homes won't come close to using that up. But if "industrial" ends up being 25 drivers, I suspect there will be a lot of residential systems (DIY or Pro) that end up hitting that number.

 

[Helheim]

There are also some of us that bought CQC before there was a maintenance fee and didn't really like the idea of a maintenance fee. In the long run it probably works out to about the same anyway.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Dean,

With the current setup if you move your CQC installation to a new machine we had to get a new keyfile from you.

How would this work once we stop paying maintenance fees and lets say i don't need any of the new components or upgrades?

Maybe this is something that your 3.2 is going to adress since otherwise you woudl be having to handle these requests forever without collecting fees.

Where does one actually find out when my maintenance fee will expire?

 

[myyaz33]

No, that's not what I said. I regret even having posted this now.

I bet you do... I would have to say that knowing you were going to catch heck and still posting what is about to happen with your licensing says a lot about your character..

 

[dgeffs]

No, that's not what I said. I regret even having posted this now.

Has anything been posted on the CQC forum regarding this rather radical change?

 

[Dean Roddey]

No, that's not what I said. I regret even having posted this now.

Has anything been posted on the CQC forum regarding this rather radical change?

I haven't posted anything there because we've not totally worked out all the fine details, and frankly it won't affect any existing customers, so there's nothing for existing customers to worry about. The only difference is that instead of paying the fee every year you can just buy new stuff if you want it, else don't. That's really it.

The only reason I posted here is because there's no doubt that the price is going to go up substantially, and I was giving folks a fair chance to order before that happened. That's a 'gross level' conseqeunce that's not going to change. Once we get all the fine details worked out, we'll post on the CQC forum. But really there's nothing to concern any existing customers.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Dean,

With the current setup if you move your CQC installation to a new machine we had to get a new keyfile from you.

How would this work once we stop paying maintenance fees and lets say i don't need any of the new components or upgrades?

Maybe this is something that your 3.2 is going to adress since otherwise you woudl be having to handle these requests forever without collecting fees.

Where does one actually find out when my maintenance fee will expire?

Currently, any time you ask for a new license, you just get coverage for up to the most recent version. In the new scheme, you'd just get a new license that covers you for whatever you've purchased so far.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I think, if I may paraphrase, that the two arguments are thisean, a couple questions I have. The "pay for changes" we'll be going to....is it just for major components? Those don't happen very often, right? I mean, I think the RIVA and Logic Server were some of the most recent ones. But most updates on the 1/10ths version level won't mean a new component, correct?

Mostly that would be the case. But we may also have a small fee for new versions that have a lot of new stuff, even if it's not a major new component. Some of our minor level releases have as much stuff as other people's major releases.

In your opinion, in any given year, how do you think the cost of paying for every new thing that comes out will compare to the $95/year maintenance fee? Will it be a wash?

There won't be a big diference either way. It would probably end up being a little advantageous to pre-buy some maintenance fee years now if you are a 'want the new toys' type person. But it's not going to make a big difference one way or another.

 

[jkish]

No, that's not what I said. I regret even having posted this now.

Has anything been posted on the CQC forum regarding this rather radical change?

I haven't posted anything there because we've not totally worked out all the fine details, and frankly it won't affect any existing customers, so there's nothing for existing customers to worry about. The only difference is that instead of paying the fee every year you can just buy new stuff if you want it, else don't. That's really it.

The only reason I posted here is because there's no doubt that the price is going to go up substantially, and I was giving folks a fair chance to order before that happened. That's a 'gross level' conseqeunce that's not going to change. Once we get all the fine details worked out, we'll post on the CQC forum. But really there's nothing to concern any existing customers.

I take that to mean that existing customers will not be affected by client or driver limits going forward.