filePro upgrades (was Re: Encrypting credit card data)

[Kroboth, Joe]

Mark verbosely said.. 

Additionally, NO, I -don't- feel CS4 is worth the money.  CS4 doesn't need
to keep your enterprise-level services making money 24/7/365.  OneGate
does.  You use PhotoShop CS4 once in a while, or periodically a couple
times a day (more times if it crashes on you, losing your work).  It
can crash and you get to restart it--slowwwwwly.  I mean, seriously,
Adobe -Reader- is practically a CPU speed benchmark based on how slowly
it loads.  They're not known for their lightning fast operation in any
of their products, TTBOMK.  OneGate is driving requests day and night,
unattended, and very quickly.  I don't think I've ever seen it "crash" due
to anything other than a configuration error, either--in which case it
politely logs the issue and exits politely.  It definitely has never just
up and -crashed- without a trace--more than I can say for any Adobe product
I've ever used, straight back to my first PC in 1993.  In fact, my record
is crashing PhotoShop on a PowerPC Mac 12 times in an hour and a half,
doing the most simple filters you'd ever want to apply--first-party ones,
no less.  It would have crashed more, but it can only restart so fast.

And additionally, OG is priced competitively against its "competition".
It's at least as inexpensive as one of its primary competitors (while
delivering a tonne more features and superior design and security).  Adobe,
on the other hand, pretty much leads the field in reaming their customers
on high prices for equivalent features--many of which you can get elsewhere
for far less money, and often greater stability.

As for OG at $995...  Right, so I'm driving a lot of different things with
OneGate at various sites.  It costs them $995 -once- per server.  If they
get 50k transactions per day that make $0.50/ea for their company, I don't
think "cashing in" for $995 -once- is a great issue if the product -makes-
them $25k/DAY.  By way of example.  In such a situation, the cost of the
product would be recovered in under an hour of operation, assuming a level
transaction flow that's completely evenly averaged over a day.  Know how
many paid upgrades there've been?  -One-.  Versions 1 through the last 3.x
were all free.  Adobe charges for every major version upgrade, TTBOMK.  In
fact, my not charging for upgrades for 2 major versions was a mistake, in
retrospect.  For $995 in a scenario as depicted above, heck, I don't feel
guilty, I feel like I should be charging a percentage akin to royalties
or service charges (a la PayPal and many credid card processors).  But I
don't milk it like that, because I'm a reasonable guy, and I'm not horribly
greedy.
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If I'm reading this correct, you're (or Jose, not sure who started this..) comparing One Gate to Adobe CS4. It's like comparing a vending Machine to a backhoe. The only thing they have in common is they are machines.   

While I'm no adobe fan we do have about 10 people using the CS suites daily including CS4 on Macs and PCs.  While they are not problem free we do not see crashes every seven and a half minutes as you describe.

As for your OG. I think it's a great product.  I'll love to get it but I wouldn't be pushing 50K transactions a day. More like 5 so I  can't justify they cost.  Just like you can't justify the cost CS4 because you are not in the graphics industry.  I did buy your HTML2PRC.  It did the job and the price was right.

As for fP Support. It would be nice if they would at the least acknowledge receipt of emails. 

I'm going back to just lurking on the list now.        


Joe Kroboth
Chernay Printing, Inc
7483 South Main Street
Coopersburg, PA 18036
(610) 282-3774 X113
(610) 282-2982 - FAX
joe_kroboth at chernay.com