Was afraid of that … I have a custom control that I would like to soon release, and I don’t figure people using only the free license are going to be willing to purchase it (after all they haven’t purchased XOJO yet), but for those with a paid license I want to let them use it enough to properly evaluate it (but not create a compiled app until they purchase the control)…
FREE XOJO - can’t use this control
PAID XOJO, DEMO control - 100% functional in IDE only
PAID XOJO, PAID control - 100% functional and deployable
If you intend to sell something you must let people try it out, even using the Xojo Free version (they can’t produce anything anyway). Someone potentially could consider your product+Xojo a solution for their needs and buy both.
[quote=169656:@Dave S]Was afraid of that … I have a custom control that I would like to soon release, and I don’t figure people using only the free license are going to be willing to purchase it (after all they haven’t purchased XOJO yet), but for those with a paid license I want to let them use it enough to properly evaluate it (but not create a compiled app until they purchase the control)…
FREE XOJO - can’t use this control
PAID XOJO, DEMO control - 100% functional in IDE only
PAID XOJO, PAID control - 100% functional and deployable[/quote]
I have tried every formula under the sun of try before you buy with all sorts of astute limitations supposed to entice people to buy, until I realized it made very little difference.
Either don’t offer a free evaluation at all, or let people play with the demo as they please. Otherwise they may hold a grudge. It’s just like net neutrality. Unlimited means no throttle. Free evaluation means no strings attached.
Devil’s advocate : as a pro licensee, I can install three Xojo. So I have the iMac, the PC, and the Mac Book. But when I get another one, I add Xojo. Unpaid, of course. So I can work on it. For instance the latest touch PC tablet I have. Or virtual machines.
Not paid does not mean necessarily free.
Look at what other successful third party suppliers do. Christian lets people play with his extremely large collection of plugins entirely free. Seems like a winning scheme.
I’ve pretty much decided that the “play” version (ie. running in the IDE) will watermark the results…
And I don’t think MBS is set up in such a manner that a demo version and paid version are identical to the point that its deployable, if so he’d be broke
Proof is in the pudding. Before I bought MBS, I simply played with the plugins at will. What they are is commonly known as nagware. They let you know every time you run they are unpaid, there for evaluation only. But they do run in the IDE. They even compile.
I am not a proponent of free for all, mind you. Today most of my Mac products have NO free evaluation version, thanks to the MAS. But on Windows, it is a requirement. Now placing a watermark or curbing some functionalities is IMHO the only way people will eventually buy.
Since obviously your product is mainly geared towards fellow developers, though, there are aspects of marketing I frankly know nothing about. From what I see, some developers seem mighty cheap…