3 ms·

You should just sell maintenance subscriptions / better support tiers - lots of software companies have been doing that for years. Perpetual license and if it b

You should just sell maintenance subscriptions / better support tiers - lots of software companies have been doing that for years. Perpetual license and if it breaks for someone using it at home they can go to the free support forums. Large company that needs it fixed in a super quick turnaround? Monthly fee for priority.

grujicd 5y ago
We do have a maintenance option, but we don't push it that hard and it doesn't bring in significant revenue. This could be handled much better I'm sure. We also have major upgrades which do bring in some more cash since they're more expensive and more users buy them. But it's every 5-6 years. And it's still significantly lower than regular new licenses. I'm thinking about adding a Saas "Team" edition, which would offer centralized management of users, connections they use, permissions, with some auditing etc. First problem is we would have to store some sensitive data (connections) which gives me a security scare. Second problem is we'll introduce central point of failure which gives me another kind of scare. And very soon we'd have different versions of client software running on end users machines which should all work correctly with a server. That's a third scare, a versioning one.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  Do some type of integration with Azure AD so you do not have to worry about the security or any of that? Plus clients will be familiar with it and could use existing users in their infrastructure.
  - grujicd 5y ago
    That's a good suggestion. But in reality we'd have to support both Azure AD and our own storage for users who are not using Azure AD. And possibly even on-premise version, which is additional complication. It's beginning to look clear why it's an idea from few years ago but still not implemented.
    - Melatonic 5y ago
      I assumed with windows you were already integrating with on premise AD for user management which syncs nicely with Azure Azure AD I meant just for user / rights management - not full azure for actual storage and everything.

grujicd 5y ago

We do have a maintenance option, but we don't push it that hard and it doesn't bring in significant revenue. This could be handled much better I'm sure. We also have major upgrades which do bring in some more cash since they're more expensive and more users buy them. But it's every 5-6 years. And it's still significantly lower than regular new licenses. I'm thinking about adding a Saas "Team" edition, which would offer centralized management of users, connections they use, permissions, with some auditing etc. First problem is we would have to store some sensitive data (connections) which gives me a security scare. Second problem is we'll introduce central point of failure which gives me another kind of scare. And very soon we'd have different versions of client software running on end users machines which should all work correctly with a server. That's a third scare, a versioning one.

Melatonic 5y ago
Do some type of integration with Azure AD so you do not have to worry about the security or any of that? Plus clients will be familiar with it and could use existing users in their infrastructure.
- grujicd 5y ago
  That's a good suggestion. But in reality we'd have to support both Azure AD and our own storage for users who are not using Azure AD. And possibly even on-premise version, which is additional complication. It's beginning to look clear why it's an idea from few years ago but still not implemented.
  - Melatonic 5y ago
    I assumed with windows you were already integrating with on premise AD for user management which syncs nicely with Azure Azure AD I meant just for user / rights management - not full azure for actual storage and everything.