Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Existing customers will be grandfathered into the new scheme with driver/client levels that no one is going to find limiting unless they are Bill Gates.
Upcoming change in CQC pricing
- Thread starter Dean Roddey
- Start date
Existing customers will be grandfathered into the new scheme with driver/client levels that no one is going to find limiting unless they are Bill Gates.
Sounds like a great incentive for anyone considering purchasing CQC to jump on this.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Exactly, hence the original reason for me posting this. Yes, you will be able to put together a CQC system after the price change, potentially for even less than the current DIY price, but it will be a very limited system. Whereas if you do it now, you can get a full system with limits that you won't hit, for that price. That's why it's a good deal to do it now.
This all seems fair to current users and to me sounds like a very workable plan. When maintenance expires current users need to pay for new versions. The part I see missing here was do I need to buy every version upgrade, or can I skip some? Lets say I have 3.2, but don't upgrade to 3.3, 3.4,or 3.5. When 3.6 comes out, I have to have it. Will the 3.2 to 3.6 upgrade cost the same as the 3.5 to 3.6? Also, will users with many drivers, servers, and clients pay more to upgrade than someone with few? It seems like users with many drivers, clients, etc. would pay more for the upgrade than the ones with a "small" system? And what about those grandfathered unlimited client, driver users? Seems like they might need to pay the most.
I don't intend to drag this on more than needed, realizing all the details aren't worked out yet, but it seems like such a pricing plan could be pretty complicated, but I fully support anything that Dean comes up with.
As a DIY user, I think that the biggest negative of such a pricing plan will be that it makes it difficult for DIY users to be CQC users. This may impact the number of users on the board, number of new drivers created, etc. but I hope not.
I don't intend to drag this on more than needed, realizing all the details aren't worked out yet, but it seems like such a pricing plan could be pretty complicated, but I fully support anything that Dean comes up with.
As a DIY user, I think that the biggest negative of such a pricing plan will be that it makes it difficult for DIY users to be CQC users. This may impact the number of users on the board, number of new drivers created, etc. but I hope not.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
Yeh, that would be the deal, since we are honoring them till they run out.
Just the thought of this is will most likely freak out your existing customers. My first reaction was to go to the J9AE website to see how they are doing. After I calmed down a bit, thought about having to start over and realized what a tremendous amount of effort I've put into my CQC installation I came to the conclusion I'd better stay where I am than move.
I'll probably buy some additional years of maintenance just to be careful but I think many will want to know what level of charges may apply for additional features or new versions. It's one thing to say a person can buy a new version if they want it. But is that new version going to have an upgrade price that is more than I paid for my DIY version in the first place because it is now based on a much higher base price?
I'm also curious about this professional market. Looking at your website there are only a handful of integrators scattered throughout the country. I've got to assume there are more people reselling CQC than these few companies. The only company I've heard of that integrates CQC within their products is Vidabox. If I wanted to contact a CQC professional integrator in Houston are there any? I know I'm probably being a dumbass DIY'er with very little clue about the real world of doing this for a living but it would seem that every CQC installation would be custom. Why would an integrator even dicsuss what software they are using to develop a custom solution?
If a client comes to me to develop a custom piece of software I suppose I'd be willing to tell them I will write it in Visual Studio. If they want to go out and buy VS for a few hundred bucks and do it themselves why are they contacting me in the first place? I realize this is simplistic approach and I'm sure licensing is a key issue here but it would seem the integrator could cover the licensing fee in the overall charge to do the work. Do you know if most charge by the hour or the job? Just curious about the business model.
Can you give us the basic sequence of events that is about to happen with regards to existing DIY customers? Will there be some time (30 days?) between the official announcement of the new pricing strategy and the cutoff date for purchasing additional annual maintenance? How can we find out the discount levels for multi-year maintenance purchases?
Thanks,
Ira
Thanks,
Ira
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
What? Did you read what I've posted here? I've made it clear that existing customers really have nothing to fear and nothing is going to change other than the fact that *You will have more choice*. I mean what's the problem with that? Calm down, dude.
If you were to buy all the new goodies that come out, then you probably will pay somewhat more than the current fee covers. But you no longer have to buy everything. Only if you need it or want it.
The reason I put forward the paying fee schedule some years ahead was just if know you are going to want to all the new goodies and you want to lock in a known cost now. That's it. It's not like you are going to end up spending 5 times more if you don't do that. But it will save you some bucks long term, as is always the case when you are willing to pay ahead. This is nothing radical in the business world.
Well, therein lies the rub. That's why this is happening. We need to attract more integrators, and the price was becoming a problem. It needed to become more scalable, and we wanted to get to having a single price so that we can openly offer the product for sale to non-professionals.
Some of them work directly through Vidabox, not through us. Part of why we are doing what we are doing is because of Vidabox. They have even more trouble with the price than we do. They need to be able to offer lower priced systems for small solutions, of which there are far more than large ones, and we (not being Crestron) tend to for now tend to attract integrators who do smaller systems.
If you look down the list, you'll see that dbControls is in Dallas Fort Worth. That would be the closest one of ours to you. They don't necessarily have to be in your home town if you are looking for just CQC stuff, as apposed to physical installation, since they can do stuff remotely.
Because the customer generally isn't going to just accept a final number and not want to see what the broken out charges are for. Most installers give the customer a full breakdown of everything that's going into the system and the prices thereof.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
If you are going to do it, I'd do it very soon. I've already started on the changes. I can't say exactly how long since it depends on whether I run into unexpected difficulties. But it won't be long.
The question is whether or not the actual cutoff date for purchasing additional annual maintenance will come at the same time as the announcement for the new pricing structure. Or will the announcement say there will be a grace period from that day in which maintenance can still be purchased? If it all happens on the same date, can you shotgun out an email a few days in advanced to DIY customers? Will you pre-announce on the CQC forum (or here) or here when the announcement date has been determined? "Very soon" means today to some, next week to others, and next month to the rest of us.
Also, how do we find what the discounts are for multiple years at various breaks?
Thanks,
Ira
Steve
Senior Member
Dean,
I think there are alot of people that are going through that thought process because this is a big change albeit still with some outstanding unknowns. The current DIY price is pretty much at the upper end of where DIY'ers are going to go, you said that yourself. So you originally said a DIY system will be roughly $1500 which is absolutely beyond the means of all but a few DIY'ers. Now you are talking about tiered level which may make a barebones system affordable for DIY but also consider alot of DIY may have a small number of display devices but they tend to have alot of drivers. They also tend to use alot of the core components which were sold separately when I purchased at V1.
I think most people are in favor of a DIY and PRO version - 2 complete separate versions like some other folks do it but I see how it could be a bit tough to still differentiate them. I also see how you may want to capture additional revenue from some of the larger 'industrial' installs. Maybe there is room for a DIY, PRO and Enterprise (or PRO+) or whatever, like small medium and large and base that off display devices or something and maybe include core stuff like event/actions and separate some more obscure stuff like AppControl and XML. But it sounds like you have your plan, and I really hope it works and does not backfire. You are kind of in a middle ground here, I don't think you have enough of EITHER Pro or DIY to sustain, you need both. Be sure you have enough Pro support before you potentially do anything to alienate the DIY crowd that helped build the product into the great thing it is today. I'm sure you know if you alienate a user base it will be very difficult to win back their loyalty - just look at some of your peers.
And more specifically to the quoted point - I think there is still the fear of the unknown. Yes, many people dislike the $95 annual fee but when people understand it I think they are happy to know that's all they will ever pay. But the real fear here is now you are talking about making this a much more expensive, pro level only product. When people think of a product that costs originally $1500, they can easily assume updates and stuff will cost alot, even $500. At your rate of development, that could be $500 every few years which is certainly more than the current maintenance. It could be your upgrades are much more reasonable and even a wash as you mentioned, but I think that unknown is what makes some people uneasy. Heck, I have been using CQC for 5 years now and I would be lying if I said some of these changes did not concern me and making me wonder if CQC would be 'out of my league'. Maybe you need to give existing customers like a 15 or 30 days grace period to decide what to do AFTER they see your new structure? Also, at least I thought that one of the reasons for the mandatory maintenance over the 'buy the new stuff if you want it' approach was that you did not want to support older versions. If this is the case I can easily see an existing customer on 3.x maybe not wanting to upgrade and you all of the sudden are on 4.x or 5.x and have to still support 3.x customers? Are you prepared to do that?
Anyway, just wanted to bring up points I have heard or thought about myself. I truly hope whatever you do works and keeps CQC as a viable product for everyone.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
It can't be out of your league if you already own it. So please, if you are an existing customer you just don't have anything to worry about.
New components only end really happen about once a year. If you want a new one that comes out, it won't be stupidly expensive. The individual components are all like $125 to $150 in the new pricing scheme. So, if one came out this year, and you liked it, you'd pick it up if you wanted it. Back before the fee based system we'd have an introductory period where existing customers could pick up new components for a small discount, otherwise, later you'd pay the whole price. We may do that in the new scheme, I dunno. If you could afford $95 a year, I don't think that $125 or $150 would put you into the poor house.
Other than for new components we may charge a nomimal fee for upgrades on new versions that have significant new stuff but no actual new licensable components. It won't be a huge price.
So, basically, if you wanted to insure you could get all the new stuff that comes out, for a known price, paying the maintenance fee some years ahead now would probably save you $25 or $50, maybe worst case $100 a year or some such thing like that. It's not going to be a $500 a year difference. OR, you could just do nothing and when new stuff comes out, if you want it, buy it, else don't. If you aren't of the 'want all the new toys type', then that may well be cheaper for you than paying up some years of fees.
It's really that simple, so folks should just chill out. I mean we are getting rid of the maintenance fee which, at the time we implemented it, was almost universally hated, and we went through exactly this same type of thing with that. Now we are getting rid of it, and letting you only buy what you want, and we get hit with the exact same thing.
If anyone wants to do the fee thing, just email me at support at charmedquark.com, as previously mentioned.
I understand the new scheme (I think) where, as an existing customer I won't have to add any "new components" unless I feel there are necessary for my system but does that mean you'll continue to allow me *free* access to any upgrades or additional functionality in the components I already own? Only "new" components are going to cost me?
I guess I am a bit confused...
Similar threads
- Sticky
