alankeny

New Members
  • Posts

    2
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by alankeny

  1. As a business user I don't consider BTSync an obvious winner at all.  From my perspective there's far too much risk placed on the end-user with the rental pricing model Bittorrent has chosen.

     

    I've been burned by vendors that made major changes to their software after I bought it.  If I buy a license, I can continue to use the last version that worked for me without continuing to pay.  I simply stop paying maintenance and move on.

     

    With BTSync's rental pricing, I would have to pay every year, even if I gave up on new releases a long time ago.  That ties up limited funds that could be used to pay for other software.

     

    In my case I've found other software that works more like Dropbox.  It relies on a central server, so it's not as flexible as BTSync.  I bought a commercial license for my staff, because we like the extra features available in the Professional Edition.  These features won't suddenly disappear if I stop sending them money.

     

    I sincerely wish Bittorrent would provide a similar license option.  I feel their current pricing model places all of the risk on the end-user, while they demand a yearly reward.

  2. I've been evaluating Sync an alternative to Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud storage services.  As part of a public sector organization, we are not supposed to use public cloud services without going through an extensive contract evaluation process.  It's a lot easier for us to implement our own private services that are under our own control.

     

    The first post in this thread seems to be written without any regard for the customer's perspective.  A subscription model means customers must pay regardless of wether the software improves or not.  My organization has plenty of experience with software vendors that get bought out, decide to take their software in an entirely different direction, or suddenly and dramatically increase their support fees.  With subscription pricing we would have to continue to pay, even if we gave up running later versions of the software long ago.  If we suddenly couldn't afford to pay, we would simply be stuck.

     

    My organization is much more comfortable paying an initial license fee and then paying an annual support fee that includes updates.  As long as we pay for support, we can continue to upgrade.  When we stop paying for support, the software still works, but we can't upgrade past our last supported version.  If we have to change products, this model allows us to use funds for a new product, while we transition off of the old one.

     

    From my perspective as long as Sync relies on subscription pricing, it is not a viable alternative to the public cloud.