Visual Objects SP4 News from GrafX

Marc,
>IIRC?
Yes, IIRC, - i payed PS from Day 1 and that's some long time ago.
Really have no time nor reason to dig into my old invoices.

>Yeah right.. Never heard of that before, probably for the Platinum VOPS
>inner circle.
Hey Barbara, wouldn you chime in, please. FTR, i read that as being
rude, really.

K.

On 17 feb, 14:52, Barbara <barbara*DeleteTh...@easytrip.net> wrote:
> > But OTOH, i might venture to ask, where was your protest when people
> > here in this group called B a "liar", breaker of promises etc. etc.?
>
> Just because I did not attack or post something on this public NG, does
> not mean that I did not voice my opinion.
>
> I clearly understand that things were offered and not delivered. And
> sadly things changed and Brian had to make business choices. I know
> people are upset, I do understand that.
>
> I just wonder if he might be more apt to consider a different approach
> if things were started in a less harsh tone. I know I am far more
> receptive to a client that calls me and chats calmly versus one that
> raises their voice. Just a thought.
>
> Barbara




I have no interest in attacking people
I attack the concept behind the words

I have customers today do not represent a gain
Interesting, but I'm taking the best way for a
question of responsibility and never forget they are people

Again, anyone who works with people, have rights
and duties

In Argentina VO developers flee to C #
disillusioned by mistreatment

The more intelligent, if the idea is vulcan, had been
strengthen relationship VO - programmers
Sooner or later they would emerge the necesisad of vulcan

I think it's late



Jorge

Barbara.

Hmmm... I think Jorge's point is a good one. Whilst on one hand you
suggest that Brian can run his company as he sees fit, Jorge is pointing
out that Brian has obligations to us.

He does. And CA enshrined them.

It isn't like we can go elsewhere for support. Brian owns a monopoly and
monopoly holders take up that monopoly in full knowledge that there are
reciprocal responsibilities. So no, Brian is not completely free to do
as he chooses and he continually ignores the wishes and advice of the
very community that can support him.

It is why his user base continues to diminish.
This latest action will just finish it off.

Geoff



"Barbara" <barbara*DeleteThis*@easytrip.net> wrote in message
news:4d5dccba$0$22142$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> > Barbara says
> >
> > " I may not agree with some of the choices GrafX is making, but I do
> > respect that Brian has the right to run his company how he sees fit "
> >
> >
> >
> > He has rights but
> > he has obligations too,
> > like any other human being
>
>
>
> Jorge,
>
> I did not say that I agree with what Brian is doing right now. But as
> the owner of the company he can run things as he wants, even if we may
> not like it. As customers we can and should voice our opinions.
>
> In my opinion, it would be far more productive to be professional and
> not attack him and others that post comments. This accomplishes nothing
> and only reflects on the poster. I would venture to say that none of us
> like it when customers become demanding and start arguing.
>
> Like it or not, the owner of a company can turn down requests from its
> clients. Brian turned down a request I made to him. I disagreed with
> that, but it was his choice and that is what I respect. I have never
> felt the need or desire to attack Brian for his business choices. He did
> not owe me anything more than to hear my request and render a decision.
>
> You may disagree with me, but I was making an honorable attempt to ask
> that we try to be civil. If you want to attack, then may I suggest you
> send a private email.
>
>
> Barbara

Good point. That is my attitude also.


"Marc Verkade [Marti]" <marcatm@rti.nl> wrote in message
news:4d5e3b3b$0$770$58c7af7e@news.kabelfoon.nl:

> I don't want Vulcan or VOPS or whatever..
> I want SP4 if I think it is worth the money.
>
> "Karl Faller" schreef in bericht
> news:f81rl65j00cjtmqqgvf90c9i31dfm44fr2@4ax.com...
>

...and they have done that for us also.

I didn't want to upgrade every year and on the second year later, I
resisted until their sales team offered me the upgrade price anyway.
$700 over two years is still way better than zero.

Geoff



"Willie Moore" <williem@wmconsulting.com> wrote in message
news:ijk9dt$f1p$1@speranza.aioe.org:

> Geoff,
>
> You are correct about the controls. I got them so I could have the same look
> and feel between my winforms and my asp.net apps. The 700 renewal fee covers
> you for a period of time. If you wait too long (I think 6 months) then they
> will try to charge you full price to get back in. I ran into that after my
> back surgery. Once I got back to a point where I could sit and work a full
> day, my subscription had lapsed by 6 or 7 months. There original position
> was that I pay 1195 but after chatting with them, they went ahead and gave
> me the 700 price.
>
> Regards,
> Willie

Geoff,

My last support issue with Infragistics took more than a month to resolve
and the resolution ended up being a work around. I was having some
performance issues with the webgrid because I need cells to be calculated at
runtime. The formula for the cells is stored in a DB because it is different
for each unit. Their webcalcmanager does a great job in doing the
calculations but you cannot run it on the client side. It requires a round
trip to the server to do a calc. After a month of going back and forth, they
found an ivar that was not used in most situations and recommended that I
use it as a cargo to access the formula because they didn’t support formulas
on the client side. Once I was able to get the formula on the client side, I
wrote some java to do the calc and all is well.

When I searched their forum, it was a common problem but no one ever posted
any solution. I am going to write it up and post it. May save some others a
bit of trouble. Their grid on the winforms side is really pretty good. I am
moving all of my new work to WPF. I really like it. Their control libraries
for WPF and Silverlight are not bad.

As I said earlier, this is one of the three subscriptions that I keep
current. It is just part of doing business.

Regards,
Willie

Geoff,
Actually Karl is right. Fact is, VOPS members get a lifetime license.
And there never have been special VOPS licenses expiring once you quit
- at least not here in Europe - , maybe with an exception for you<s>.
Once you quit VOPS you fall back to regular upgrade policy. I should
know because I recently sold quite a few Vulcan 2 upgrades to ex-VOPS
members at these terms. No difference if you bought Vulcan 1 at the
regular price (as a non VOPS member) or if you got Vulcan 1 as a
former VOPS member.

Regards
Dieter
Vulcan distributor in Europe

On 17 Feb., 22:31, "Geoff Schaller"
<geo...@softwarexobjectives.com.au> wrote:
> Actually no.
>
> Unless Brian has amended his original license conditions (and I haven't
> checked), the VOPS only licenses you for 12 months. So if you lapse you
> need to pay the joining price and not just a renewal.
>
> Geoff
>
> "Karl Faller" <k.faller_withoutth...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
>
> news:f81rl65j00cjtmqqgvf90c9i31dfm44fr2@4ax.com:
>
>
>
> > Jorge,
> > i thought i explained, that you have NOT to pay regularily?
> > If you _need_/want *SP4, pay ONCE a VOPS subscription, get a second
> > license for Vo, SP4+ evtl. interim builds, plus a VN license without
> > continuing cost. I don't know what more you can ask. BTW, may i just
> > remind you, Grafx and its developers are NOT argentinians- they live
> > and work in places, where living cost real money...
>
> > Karl- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
>
> - Zitierten Text anzeigen -

I know what everybody will say..... as tactfull as usual....

But i have paid for VOPS, and what have i seen the last year.....

I have seen a blue sky and the sun....

When i pay the playboy, i receive 12 magazines in a year. On the other
hand with VOPS i receive a renewal request once a year

I am sure there are hot fixes for CAVO, but they have never been
released...

And now brain says "good news there will be SP4"

let me translate it: 80% of the VOPS did not renew the VOPS so brian
is looking for something......

Cheers,

Alwin

just my 2 cents, but while I understand Brian's desire to get 900 out
of a developer if he can, and there are some I'm sure that will fit
just nicely, There should be an appropriately priced policy of upgrade
as most all other software I know has. It seems to me that policies
that are exclusive like this lead to abamdonment of the product as one
can look around and take that money to buy other products that are
better supported and are growing in terms of users.

I recently just bought 2.8, and I sure hope Brian decides to roll out
the sp4 to those paid up users, but then also decides to release the
update for a fee. I won't pay for a 900 upgrade for a product I only
paid 600 for. I can't afford that given the number of clients I
support, but I could justify something less if the update was worth
it.

CHeers

Steve

Dieter,

Then he has changed the design of the system but that doesn't make
sense. It would mean I could have another license with every renewal. Is
that the case now? The original VOPS was not. I was required to purchase
additional VOPS licenses for each of my developers and where it did not
cover an original VO license, the additional license obtained through
the VOPS plan expired with the expiry of the subscription. That was very
clear and we signed a statement acknowledging that. So now you're saying
that VOPS subscription holders have one new VO license (and I presume
Vulcan license) with every subscription.

Is that why it is so expensive?

Geoff


"Dieter" <support@visualobjects.de> wrote in message
news:fcde7512-58d1-4d21-a465-cfad0d636ec4@s18g2000vbe.googlegroups.com:

> Geoff,
> Actually Karl is right. Fact is, VOPS members get a lifetime license.
> And there never have been special VOPS licenses expiring once you quit
> - at least not here in Europe - , maybe with an exception for you<s>.
> Once you quit VOPS you fall back to regular upgrade policy. I should
> know because I recently sold quite a few Vulcan 2 upgrades to ex-VOPS
> members at these terms. No difference if you bought Vulcan 1 at the
> regular price (as a non VOPS member) or if you got Vulcan 1 as a
> former VOPS member.
>
> Regards
> Dieter
> Vulcan distributor in Europe
>
> On 17 Feb., 22:31, "Geoff Schaller"
> <geo...@softwarexobjectives.com.au> wrote:
>
> > Actually no.
> >
> > Unless Brian has amended his original license conditions (and I haven't
> > checked), the VOPS only licenses you for 12 months. So if you lapse you
> > need to pay the joining price and not just a renewal.
> >
> > Geoff
> >
> > "Karl Faller" <k.faller_withoutth...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
> >
> > news:f81rl65j00cjtmqqgvf90c9i31dfm44fr2@4ax.com:
> >
> >
> >
>
> > > Jorge,
> > > i thought i explained, that you have NOT to pay regularily?
> > > If you _need_/want SP4, pay ONCE a VOPS subscription, get a second
> > > license for Vo, SP4+ evtl. interim builds, plus a VN license without
> > > continuing cost. I don't know what more you can ask. BTW, may i just
> > > remind you, Grafx and its developers are NOT argentinians- they live
> > > and work in places, where living cost real money...
> >
> > > Karl- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
> >
>
> > - Zitierten Text anzeigen -

No Steve, Brian and Dieter have been very clear.

SP4 is only to be made available to VOPS subscribers... meaning it is a
VERY expensive SP.

Geoff



"SteveMcNaughton" <stevemcnaughton@auditron.com> wrote in message
news:a1bef1bd-6011-4e4d-8de8-a61021d056e9@a28g2000prb.googlegroups.com:

> just my 2 cents, but while I understand Brian's desire to get 900 out
> of a developer if he can, and there are some I'm sure that will fit
> just nicely, There should be an appropriately priced policy of upgrade
> as most all other software I know has. It seems to me that policies
> that are exclusive like this lead to abamdonment of the product as one
> can look around and take that money to buy other products that are
> better supported and are growing in terms of users.
>
> I recently just bought 2.8, and I sure hope Brian decides to roll out
> the sp4 to those paid up users, but then also decides to release the
> update for a fee. I won't pay for a 900 upgrade for a product I only
> paid 600 for. I can't afford that given the number of clients I
> support, but I could justify something less if the update was worth
> it.
>
> CHeers
>
> Steve

I guess you know why so many people are refusing to renew.

If they are going to renew they will only do so once SP4 is released
(which doesn't help Brian's revenue stream much). But then you are
paying full product price for a mere service pack that can't really have
much in it. All SP3 did was give me grief with new bugs. Let's summarise
SP3:

New classes - nil
Runtime fixes - probably 20 useful ones
GUI class fixes - oh, about 15-20 again (many irrelevant)
New Runtime Bugs - 5 serious ones
New Editor misbehaviour - lots, it went backwards
New GUI bugs - several
Source control fixes - 15 useful ones (but very few people use it)

(all the bugs were solidly reported in detail into these forums)

It was a very thin list, given the amount of time since SP2 and the
water under the bridge in the VOPS forums. Of all people, I thoroughly
understand the development cycle here but because I cannot participate
in the VOPS cycle, I now stand outside it. Thus I have a right to
criticise it. And what I expect is that where new bugs get introduced
that a maintenance patch is released fixing them. Then we have a genuine
SP process and grateful users.

So what will we get with SP4?
What will he do about new bugs in SP4?

We don't know because Brian doesn't know. He hasn't got a plan and is
merely hoping to induce a few more VOPS subscriptions in a desperate
scramble for revenue.

Sad really.

Geoff



"Alwin Nederpelt" <powerneet@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4a364747-3a7d-4f0f-b3f8-a52ec1c7f554@k22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:

> I know what everybody will say..... as tactfull as usual....
>
> But i have paid for VOPS, and what have i seen the last year.....
>
> I have seen a blue sky and the sun....
>
> When i pay the playboy, i receive 12 magazines in a year. On the other
> hand with VOPS i receive a renewal request once a year
>
> I am sure there are hot fixes for CAVO, but they have never been
> released...
>
> And now brain says "good news there will be SP4"
>
> let me translate it: 80% of the VOPS did not renew the VOPS so brian
> is looking for something......
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alwin

Ehh, I have seen a lot of rain and snow lately!
I can remember you sitting in your office around 10 km away...
I guess you have a blue ceiling overthere with some sunny paintings ;-)

For me the same.
I bought 3 VOPS licenses and not getting VO updates in 2010...

Grrr, Marc

"Alwin Nederpelt" schreef in bericht
news:4a364747-3a7d-4f0f-b3f8-a52ec1c7f554@k22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...

I know what everybody will say..... as tactfull as usual....

But i have paid for VOPS, and what have i seen the last year.....

I have seen a blue sky and the sun....

When i pay the playboy, i receive 12 magazines in a year. On the other
hand with VOPS i receive a renewal request once a year

I am sure there are hot fixes for CAVO, but they have never been
released...

And now brain says "good news there will be SP4"

let me translate it: 80% of the VOPS did not renew the VOPS so brian
is looking for something......

Cheers,

Alwin

On Feb 16, 2:24*pm, E®!k \\/!$$E® <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> Brian,
>
> Things could be worse.
> ( That is an expression in my part of the Netherlands, meaning GREAT! )
>
> Congratulations to you but most of all to the VO community.
>
> Erik
>
> "Brian" *wrote in message
>
> news:4d5bdc99$0$28731$c3e8da3$c8b7d2e6@news.astraw eb.com...
>
> Hello All,
>
> Grafx is pleased to announce that *Meinhard Schnoor-Matriciani will be
> joining the GrafX DevTeam effective immediately.
>
> Meinhard, will doing work on Visual Objects on a part time basis, so the
> good news is that we will have a SP4 later this year. * No date has been
> announced yet for it's release.
>
> Those of you who know Meinhard, are more than likely aware of the talent set
> he brings to Visual Objects. * In a way, its most ironic that VO
> Development picks up in Germany, very near to where it started off.
>
> We are of course, pleased to resume development on Visual Objects.
>
> SP4 will only be available to VOPS members.
>
> http://www.grafxsoft.com/2vosubscribe.htm
>
> All the best,
>
> Brianhttp://www.GrafXsoft.com
>
> http://www.GoVulcan.NET

Hi all,

I was a member of VOPS for a few years, but dropped out as there was
no return on the investment. I would have expected patches to correct
errors in SP releases to come through on a regular basis but this did
not happen.

I would consider renewing my VOPS subscription again if there were
some guarantees on what that would provide in the way of customer
support.

For example, I have not moved to SP3 due to the number of errors that
have been reported as this may very well give me a series of problems
I would rather avoid. Would SP4 have the same issues and if so will
these ever get fixed and if so how long will those fixes take ? Is it
worth the risk ?

Will SP4 replace my current version to the point that it would be
difficult to go back to SP2, which is my current position. Can SP4 be
installed alongside my current version in the same way that I have
V2.7 and V2.8 running side by side. If so could this be then used on a
60 day trial allowing the users to determine whether SP4 provides
enough new routines and classes to warrant the renewal of the VOPS
subscription.

If SP4 will completely replace my current version which is SP2, then I
would need to know the following first:-

What will SP4 provide as far as new methods and classes are concerned.
If this is just a fix for the errors in SP3, which I am not using,
there is no advantage to me.

What guarantees will be given with fixed timescales for the correction
of any new errors that may come to light in SP4. If there are errors
in SP4, we all need a cast iron guarantee that these will be fixed
within a set timescale.

Having thought that VO was dead I began developing my existing
applications in Microsoft C#. As this is a steep learning curve for
me, having not used C# before, I would be happier to stay with VO but
I would need to know that it is going somewhere first.

Regards,
Ian

On 19 Feb., 23:51, "Geoff Schaller"
<geo...@softwarexobjectives.com.au> wrote:
> Dieter,
>
> Then he has changed the design of the system but that doesn't make
> sense. It would mean I could have another license with every renewal. Is
> that the case now? The original VOPS was not. I was required to purchase
> additional VOPS licenses for each of my developers and where it did not
> cover an original VO license, the additional license obtained through
> the VOPS plan expired with the expiry of the subscription. That was very
> clear and we signed a statement acknowledging that. So now you're saying
> that VOPS subscription holders have one new VO license (and I presume
> Vulcan license) with every subscription.
>
> Is that why it is so expensive?
>
> Geoff
>
> "Dieter" <supp...@visualobjects.de> wrote in message
>
> news:fcde7512-58d1-4d21-a465-cfad0d636ec4@s18g2000vbe.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
> > Geoff,
> > Actually Karl is right. Fact is, VOPS members get a lifetime license.
> > And there never have been special VOPS licenses expiring once you quit
> > - at least not here in Europe - , maybe with an exception for you<s>.
> > Once you quit VOPS you fall back to regular upgrade policy. I should
> > know because I recently sold quite a few Vulcan 2 upgrades to ex-VOPS
> > members at these terms. No difference if you bought Vulcan 1 at the
> > regular price (as a non VOPS member) or if you got Vulcan 1 as a
> > former VOPS member.
>
> > Regards
> > Dieter
> > Vulcan distributor in Europe
>
> > On 17 Feb., 22:31, "Geoff Schaller"
> > <geo...@softwarexobjectives.com.au> wrote:
>
> > > Actually no.
>
> > > Unless Brian has amended his original license conditions (and I haven't
> > > checked), the VOPS only licenses you for 12 months. So if you lapse you
> > > need to pay the joining price and not just a renewal.
>
> > > Geoff
>
> > > "Karl Faller" <k.faller_withoutth...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
>
> > >news:f81rl65j00cjtmqqgvf90c9i31dfm44fr2@4ax.com :
>
> > > > Jorge,
> > > > i thought i explained, that you have NOT to pay regularily?
> > > > If you _need_/want *SP4, pay ONCE a VOPS subscription, get a second
> > > > license for Vo, SP4+ evtl. interim builds, plus a VN license without
> > > > continuing cost. I don't know what more you can ask. BTW, may i just
> > > > remind you, Grafx and its developers are NOT argentinians- they live
> > > > and work in places, where living cost real money...
>
> > > > Karl- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
>
> > > - Zitierten Text anzeigen -- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
>
> - Zitierten Text anzeigen -

Geoff,
not correct. The products come with your first subscription. Renewals
include upgrades and services, no extra licenses. Each VO 2.7 license
(and above) qualifies for one VOPS.

Regards
Dieter
VO and Vulcan Distribitor in Europe