I’m uncertain about the licensing for DT3 vs DT2. With DT2 Pro, with one license, I can use DT2 on my home Mac, my work Mac, and my laptop when I’m on the road. I never use it on more than one machine at once.
DT3 introduces a new licensing scheme:
The new licensing has this concept of “seats,” evidently to enable two different people to use the default two-seat license at once (e.g., in a team setup). Do I need an extra seat for my setup, even though I’ll only ever be using one instance at a time? If so, this seems like a major step backwards for single users.
Actually, if you read through previous threads in the Forums you will find that ~85% of our users are running DEVONthink on only one or two Macs.
I didn’t say it was a major backwards step for all users. Speaking for myself, I have to pay extra to be the single user of a license that another customer can have two members of a team use. If that doesn’t sound like a backwards step to you (from my perspective), well…
There’s been a lot of discussion about this. DT believe that this is a reasonable balance between the needs of a single user and their need to be commercially sustainable.
People who lose out are users (like you) who use DT on more than 2 computers, and people like me who need the Server edition for something other than its designed purpose (which is for team collaboration).
I’m not happy abut it, but I do understand it. Only time will tell whether DT have the balance right.
I also wish that DT would cater for use-cases like that of @TLoredo that is actually the same as mine (one iMac at home, one in the office, and laptop on the road). I think that this is fundamentally different than a team of three. I would still be happy to pay an extra 10/20 $/EUR for the additional PCs, but 99$/EUR is hefty.
If I may, that would be considered a business use. That does not mean you need the Server edition, but it’s a different thing than having three personal Macs (which is certainly not what our research and metrics clearly show). If it’s a business use, then a subcontractor can (likely, talk to your accountant) write this off on taxes or the employer could make a purchase.
Please don’t think these are simple or trivial things we’ve considered here. Unless we made everything free of charge, someone is inevitably going to be unhappy.
And as we’ve said so often over the years…
Remember that the price of our software is not an expense. (An expense is recurring, like gas and triple shots of morning espresso!) It is an investment in your education / business / and maybe even your life (finances, genealogy, health records, hobbies or business ideas, etc., etc.)
As has been pointed out in other threads, even if you purchased Pro Office for $150 11 years ago, amortized over that time it has been an incredibly sound investment for most people.
And of course, if you did make everything free of charge, you’d be extremely unhappy
Actually, it would be much worse than that.
There would be several people eventually out of work, affecting not only themselves but families too. (And I hope people consider this: This is our livelihood.)
Development would cease and there’d be no more forward movement, fixes, and eventually no product.
Please don’t think these are simple or trivial things we’ve considered here. Unless we made everything free of charge, someone is inevitably going to be unhappy.
Certainly. But I don’t think anyone is suggesting making “everything free of charge.”
With your current policy, for me to duplicate my current workflow, the discounted upgrade price will be double what I originally paid for my license. That’s not just a small adjustment to policy (though maybe the issue is that you appear to have dropped EDU discounts).
Moreover, that third “seat” is for a laptop where maybe I fire up DT once a week (or even less, except when I’m traveling). Meanwhile, a for-profit workplace can have two people simultaneously using the two-seat license at the same price I’d pay for it, with only one person ever using my license.
Finally, you keep citing metrics that imply my situation is rare. If it’s really rare, then even if you lose no customers from the change, you will be selling negligible new seats. So the real question is what is the use pattern of those 15%? Are there many DT2 licenses being used by multiple people simultaneously (if so, why not try to target that use pattern)? What fraction are people who are never using DT on more than one Mac (the majority of my software licenses are one-user/multiple (>2) Macs licenses)? (Those are rhetorical questions; I understand that’s proprietary info; I’m just trying to convey my perspective on this.)
I guess I’m in that 15% too. I have 3 machines (work, laptop, and home) of which I’m the only user. With the new licensing model, I’m either going to have to pony up for an extra seat or more likely, I’ll not use DT on one of my machines. I find this situation less than satisfying.
Looking over this thread, it appears that the people needing three seats seem to be those that use DT at home and at work. For one, if you use DT to make money, is that really too much to ask to buy a seat for that. Second, I’m comparing it to something like Mathematica, where the home license is a couple of hundred dollars, but if you want to use it at work, it is a couple of thousands. Seems DT’s pricing is more than fair.
Most audio tools have a restriction of two, means a desktop and a laptop. I wish it was three for DT3 but I could live with two (I have a special case with two laptops in use, so if I need it on all three I could pay the diff.)
I understand both perspectives. I mean even rich ppl don’t want to give money away.
But then I think about what is DevonThink? Then I think about a big vs small company. DevonThink is small company they too have to survive. Im pretty sure they didn’t just wake up one day and made a random decision on the seats allowed.
They have created a tool and are focused in making an app the best it can be and see how far they can take it for all of us. They are not here to be rich like all the other companies out there.
If you want DevonThink on more than two computers then you are either running a business or you are doing it for connivence. Your business benefits from DevonThink and convenience comes at a price.
Maybe is not your case and this will not work for you, but for me (I have DTPO on an iMac and a Mackbook pro) when I am on the road I use mainly the iOS Devonthink to Go that is powerful enough for lightweight tasks.
I bought my licence 6 months ago and I am not happy to pay again for the V3, but I understand that if we want a great app and DevonTechnologies keep maintaining and developing is something I need to do.
This is a business after all.
More than angry to need to pay so soon, I am happy for the customers that use their licence for a decade. Next upgrade I will be in these group of lucky users.
I’ve been a user all the way back to version 1. I currently run three instances with multiple large databases. A file server for backup and synchronization; a desktop; and a laptop.
This means, that for my case, I need to buy a second seat along with another full license to accommodate my needs. I’m happy to do this after all these years. I rather spend the extra money and support the company, rather than see them abandon the program and leave us without such a useful tool.
One additional seat should actually be sufficient as licenses already include a second seat (and thanks for the long support!). And maybe not even the fileserver is necessary, the other Macs could be directly synchronized via Bonjour or via cloud services or a NAN (e.g. Synology) and for backups external drives might be an option.
Exact same situation here!
Would have loved the guys of DT during their calculations thought “since 85% of users got a learning curve of 1Y, let’s make a further discount to poor fellas who bought 6M ago”
but I mean it’s a fact that they need money to survive and cannot make everybody happy if they want to keep the development (BTW now I pretend a devonsphere aligned with this DT3!)
In this day-and-age where everything seems to be subscription based requiring an annual expenditure, I love the fact that with DT still provides a product for a single fee and provides lots of enhancements for no additional fee. IMHO, the cost to upgrade to version 3.0 is more than fair. Though I use the tool almost entirely for record management and as a reference storage system, I more than get my value from using it. I can’t imagine living without it.
