First of all Boonex you provide a fantastic set of products and best of all they can be used free without any limitations.... WOW you have to be commended for that.
Second to all the complainers... What is wrong with you? Boonex have worked hard and listened to what people want and need to develope a second to none community software package... Step back and look at the big picture!
If you can't yet afford the licence so what at least you get the priveledge see more to be able to get the free version with all the same functionality to get your sites going, then when you start to become successfull you wont mind paying for the licence because it will be Boonex that made you!
If you can afford it and you are serious about your future then get the licence and support the Boonex.
After all face it most of us wouldn't know where to start to develop anything close to this and Boonex deserve to be successfull, after all without their success we wouldn't have the priveledge to complain on this blog.
Lancanshire - there is nothing "wrong with us" - why would you express it that way? We are just expressing our opinions - and have been subject to personal attacks and foul language as a result. Absolutely no one is saying we don't think Boonex products are great - we wouldn't be here otherwise, and no one is saying that the people at Boonex didn't work there asses off. I'm sure they did, as did many (perhaps most) people here. Some sites can use the free version with no affect at all see more - perhaps they already have tons of advertising, but there are many other reasons why some sites wouldn't want to advertise a software company, even in there earliest iteration. There is also absolutely no one here saying that Boonex doesn't "deserve to be successful". We all want Boonex to be successful. In my opinion, however, this makes them less likely to get there. With the free version, and low cost license, I think they had a real chance to become the "industry standard" (i.e. the next big thing), with these prices, I think that is much less likely. It is rare for companies to do a price increase of 50 percent or more without some advance notice, as they know people who had been planning to buy their product at the lower price would be less likely to do so. Had they doubled, or perhaps even tripled the license prices, I people still wouldn't have liked it, but it would have been within range of other scripts of this genre.
From my point of view, this was a strange decision. As I understand it, all the people who have bought any kind of license at all, now have an permanent, unlimited license - in fact, by some interpretations, they have multiple licenses (see Siana's post above). I doubt many of them will be rushing out to buy the new $790/$2900 license - in fact, I doubt if anyone of them will for some time, unless they have a pressing business need.
I doubt if too many of the people who don't have licenses will be rushing out either- why would they? Some may have to, but the vast majority will now put that off as long as possible. What Boonex essentially did I think, was vastly increase the "sell cycle" time of their product. People will wait longer before purchasing, and be far more demanding on support issues.
I could be wrong. Maybe those new licenses will sell like hot cakes. I just don't see people rushing out to buy something for $790 just a few days ago. Reasonable people can disagree, so let me ask you something. Suppose instead of an 800 percent price increase, this had been 10 times that, and Boonex had announced that effective immediately, the new price would be $7,900. Would you still be still be calling us "complainers" and telling us that Boonex deserves this prices because the software is fantastic and because they have worked so hard? What if they raised the price to $20,000 - would you say the same thing? For people who just got free licenses, or those for whom money is no object, for others who based our plans on what we have read here, it is.
In economics there is a concept called "the point of diminishing returns" - I just think Boonex way overshot that mark, that's all. I also think they left money on the table. Few of their existing license holders will pay them ever again - they won't need to, and people who have not bought licenses will delay and postpone- and probably look for alternatives, as there is no longer any incentive for them to buy.
I don't have time for too many more posts in this subject - I think people know my opinion, but I just once again want to drive home the point. We ALL want Boonex to be successful, and we want the software to continue to be developed and to be awesome, we just have different ideas on how Boonex should go about that.
I also think pricing changes should be announced with enough time to allow prospectives to purchase before or after (usually it´s before).
I´ll tell you a very funny anecdote. On my first and so far only (will go again soon I hope) trip to London, I was at a typical pub in the Soho area and while I was drinking my gin & tonic, the bar tender hit a bell repeatedly, like in Hooters (USA), when someone gives a tip. So I thought, cool! Like Hooters!! Instantaneously I was thinking of boobs and see more tight t-shirts, so I felt happy! My disappointment was when I found out that that belt didn´t mean "Tips!!", but "Last call"! It wasn´t so late (I think it was 11pm or so). I heard the music stop, people leaving slowly... I went to the bar and asked for my second gin & tonic and the bar tender looked at me knowing that I was a foreigner and said: "sorry, pal, we´re closed".
That is exactly how I feel today with Boonex. I love their system. I´m new here, since I discovered it 3 weeks ago. I spoke to one of the best Expertzz to ask him to install the soft for me and he logically suggested that I should wait only a few days for version 6.15 in order to do a clean install, which made a lot of sense to me. I spoke to him after the pricing change and he felt terrible for me and for everybody he had suggested to wait. He wasn´t speculating about money. What he wanted to do was a good job. And he did, but instead of buying an annual ad free (Dolphin only) license I now have to use a free one, which is not what I wanted for a very simple reason: If I show what script I´m using, I´ll have 10 people doing the same in no time (and I´m working with a small niche of expats).
Again, I love Dolphin and I´ll find a way to use it, I´m sure. But this way of changing rules doesn´t sound right and productive to me.
Let´s wait a few days and see if we can all, Boonex and us, work out something that´s good for everyone.
Good analogy Hernan! Boonex "rang the bell" - and if you didn't buy a drink before that you were out of luck. Even from purely a business perspective, this was a strange decision in my opinion. Existing paying customers are always the best potential source for new sales and revenue, but they have now all been given free lifetime licenses so most of them have no reason to pay Boonex ever again. The people with the Smartpro licenses in particular have no reason (and they are the ones see more with the most ability to pay). They now have five licenses - there may even be a secondary market develop if people with these extra licenses make them available to people who didn't get in on this deal.
Now it is the people who haven't bought licenses yet who Boonex must convince. For a small handful, $790 might be no big deal, but I suspect most of them won't feel too comfortable paying that much, when they could have gotten the same thing for $100 just a few days ago (or even $39 if they had a yearly, and for a few people as little as $20 if they bought contributor points at the right time). Many of them will look for alternatives, most will probably decide to live with with the free advertising version if they can. I think Boonex will collect less money with this approach, at least for quite a while.
First of all Boonex you provide a fantastic set of products and best of all they can be used free without any limitations.... WOW you have to be commended for that.
Second to all the complainers... What is wrong with you? Boonex have worked hard and listened to what people want and need to develope a second to none community software package... Step back and look at the big picture!
If you can't yet afford the licence so what at least you get the priveledge see more
I´ll tell you a very funny anecdote. On my first and so far only (will go again soon I hope) trip to London, I was at a typical pub in the Soho area and while I was drinking my gin & tonic, the bar tender hit a bell repeatedly, like in Hooters (USA), when someone gives a tip. So I thought, cool! Like Hooters!! Instantaneously I was thinking of boobs and see more