Demo xojo cloud account?

Let’s look at it from the host point of view. If everyone and their dog can get a demo account with their own VPS, how many of these will we end-up setting-up, maintaining and paying Rackspace for? For what return? People expect free demo/test accounts. But there are costs associated to these VPS.

I don’t pretend to answer for Xojo, nor do I have any right to do so. I am just trying to look at the question from an objective, broader perspective than just my own Xojo user perspective. Jjust briefly looking at the issue tells me that if it were my decision, I would not allow demo accounts.

My 2 cents.

Hard to lug around though

Hmmm… probably reason why virtual servers are so popular.

I suppose the purpose of a demo account would be to convert a potential client that is still deciding whether or not the use the service, into a paying client, by giving him/her the opportunity to first review the service for free.

Don’t get me wrong. i like free stuff as much as the next guy. But… Buying a one-month subscription to the service should allow for sufficient testing. One month for the smaller server is 49$. I hope that said prospect’s business case does not depend on this amount… If it does, I don’t give him much of a future. On the other side, the host has the setup costs multiple times for multiple prospects.

Euh, what would be the problem using chroot ?
Preventing users and users app to delete each others files should be quite trivial.

Can’t really argue with that.

[quote=70994:@Ralf van de Ven]Euh, what would be the problem using chroot ?
Preventing users and users app to delete each others files should be quite trivial.[/quote]

Chroot is not going to be sufficient by itself. I suspect they are using standalone mode so you need a unique IP address. Even if they are proxying or using a web server the config needs to be updated for each app that is coming/going. A lot of work for a demo account.

Best to offer a money back guarantee within a reasonable window if the service does not meet expectations.

[quote=70994:@Ralf van de Ven]Euh, what would be the problem using chroot ?
Preventing users and users app to delete each others files should be quite trivial.[/quote]
Because we’re not going to do a special config for a demo server. We would have to create a separate user for each demo user and a whole new security configuration to deal with multiple users.

On top of all that, these servers are not designed to have 30 or 40 apps competing for system resources, so any demo server that we set up would never perform the same as a single server with a limited number of apps from as single customer, which defeats the purpose of having a demo account in my mind.

It would be great to see the pricing xojo web could have been completely free, if hosted on one of the xojo cloud servers.
I guess that this wasn’t tought of or maybe it was.

It could be too much too ask, but it would be way better then having a double license fee.

It’s something I had pushed Geoff towards. I bet it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but I also wouldn’t hold my breath. Personally, I think that’s a very good model. Give away the razors, sell the blades.

Exactly, and ofcourse newbies wouldn’t see that there is 2 licenses to pay for in the beginning. Or let me say at least i can’t find it clearly said on the xojo website.

It says “Donwload” and “Buy” on the main page.
and if you would have instantly go to http://xojo.com/cloud/

MISLEADING:
it says “Buy now” wich indicates (or is misleading) that one could simply buy a xojo cloud per month wich looks like it gives a xojo web license?!?

I would have clearly put it on the website “Requires Xojo Web License”

[quote=71021:@Derk Jochems]Exactly, and ofcourse newbies wouldn’t see that there is 2 licenses to pay for in the beginning. Or let me say at least i can’t find it clearly said on the xojo website.

It says “Donwload” and “Buy” on the main page.
and if you would have instantly go to http://xojo.com/cloud/

MISLEADING:
it says “Buy now” wich indicates (or is misleading) that one could simply buy a xojo cloud per month wich looks like it gives a xojo web license?!?

I would have clearly put it on the website “Requires Xojo Web License”[/quote]

It is clearly stated on the top of the Xojo Cloud page on the store.

[quote=71013:@Derk Jochems]It would be great to see the pricing xojo web could have been completely free, if hosted on one of the xojo cloud servers.
I guess that this wasn’t tought of or maybe it was.
[/quote]

I don’t know a lot, but I know that this was floated more than a year ago, because it was floated to me. Regardless, pricing is not a problem for Xojo Cloud. If you’re that price sensitive at their pricing points, it’s probably not for you. And that’s OK, because Xojo needs to operate this thing profitably to offer it at all.

Where I’m starting to settle my thoughts on XC is that it’s a lot like the Mac App Store. You don’t have to play on XC to deliver Xojo web apps, just as you don’t have to play on MAS to deliver Mac apps. XC has some big advantages. It also restricts you significantly. No stand-alone, no popular database servers on your box. It has some costs. Are Syrians going to hijack your server just because it’s up on the Internet? Perhaps they’ll try. Or perhaps the industry standard things that VPS providers are doing to deflect those common attack vectors are good enough. No doubt XC is a good quiver to have in your arrow. Should you go all-in right now? Depends what you’re doing.

And keep in mind this is version 1.0

Hmm … version 1.0 , does that mean it’s better to wait for version 2.0 ?

Only you can answer if version 1 suits your needs. Version 1 usually means some rough spots and once end users start banging on it they’ll find things to enhance and change for version 2 (which they have done). Changes that don’t require an IDE modification can be done in between IDE releases. Those that require an IDE won’t be public until v2014 Release 2 (which I think there are a few in the works).

Correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it you have to have a Xojo web license to actually publish to the Xojo cloud?

If that is the case it makes it difficult for someone to evaluate the whole Xojo “package” and performance without an investment in the build license, only to find out that the performance of the Xojo cloud does not meet their expectations. I don’t think any serious developer or company would hesitate on spending $50 per month for a few months to test things out, but to have to buy the license is where I see the roadblock. There’s just too many unknowns, especially with a new product.

Would it not be possible to have the IDE only allow publishing to XOJO cloud for a limited period of time for testing , say 30 days AS LONG as they have paid for two months of cloud hosting? Another option is just have a “Cloud-APP” monthly subscription that includes cloud hosting AND the IDE for say $80 a month. If the license expires the app stops working or maybe the IDE will not allow new updates.

I think the hosting price is reasonable for business apps BUT I am skeptical of buying a license in order to test it out this early in the game.

Just a suggestion.

@ Bob: I do understand version 1 is normally “work in progress”, but don’t really get the point of providing a nice one-click in the IDE for deployment. For me it feels as a “nice to have” functionality ending in just a lot of complains rather than thankful PRO-users.
Since there are other accepted mechanisms for uploading stuff to a server, which developers are familiar with I guess, I should prefer Xojo Inc R&D to put this afford in “must haves” which matter for the future of this wonderful platform.

@Joseph: your point is more for customer service I guess.

Joseph- there is no minimum required time with Xojo Cloud so you can cancel it at any time. If you would just like to test out your app, you can do so and cancel when you are done if it doesn’t meet your needs.