Subscription Fees

Folks, all we've done is discontinued one product - we're not the first software company to discontinue a product and we won't be the last. That only affects one program - TDS, so it really has nothing to do with ProcessGuard licenses (or Port Explorer or WormGuard), so although I can understand and appreciate the speculation you have nothing to worry about! So allow me to clear things up...

We've been releasing software since the mid 90s and I believe our policy is one of the best and fairest for customers - pay once (at a very low price) and that's it - any and all updates to that program will then be free. No subscriptions or anything like that, and no paying for any updates. This is what I personally believe is fair for both developer and customer, and is what I believe customers want and accept as fair also.

Many software companies charge for minor updates, and most charge for major updates. We charge for neither.

The year is now 2005, it is approximately a decade after we started releasing software so I urge readers to consider our track record, as that speaks for itself. Consider TDS customers for example - we have a lot of customers who purchased TDS once in the mid 90s when it was TDS1/TDS2, and just paid $30-$40 for it, and that is the only payment they ever made - all these years later and we were still working daily for them to provide the daily database updates. Compare that to how much you've paid over the years for your antivirus scanner. When minor program updates were made available, they were offered to customers for free. When major updates were made available (ie TDS2, then TDS3), then again we still made these available free to TDS customers, something that most software companies do not do as although it's great for the customer it actually costs the developer, but ultimately our interests always have been and always will be customer satisfaction.

Due to the high-maintenance nature of TDS and the ever-increasing rate at which trojans are being released it became impossible to adequately analyse and add detection for every trojan, which consequently tied up all of our time, money and resources, essentially putting an end to development and even hampering the development of TDS4 itself. However, TDS is the only program we have that is like that, all our other programs are 'conventional', so we will never be forced to make decisions like we had to with TDS, and we're now free to develop more and more software for you, our customers.

Our license policy for all of our software has not and will not change - to register our software only requires one single (very inexpensive) payment, which entitles you to any and all subsequent updates to that program (both major and minor), and whenever possible we try to make our software available for FREE - remember we only sell a few programs, but we have dozens of freebies on offer (and even more when we release our new-look website).

Don't just take my word for it - ask any TDS, ProcessGuard, WormGuard or Port Explorer owner how many times they've ever paid for our software, regardless of how many years they've been using it. Their answer will always be: Once.

Best regards,
Wayne

 

Thanx for clearing that up again I believe you and I pitty the rest ... I wonder how they would feel when they only received one chance...

but best to y'all

Tupac Rules!!

 

If they add features then I get to use those too!
Thanks for reiterating that.
2nd Edit to explain quote in message below.
Wayne posted while I was rereading my license and I changed my post when I saw that. In the below message he was quoting my original line which I removed while he was replying to it

 

I agree with you and I think most people would.

Subscriptions are an easy way for companies to make a steady cashflow and in some cases they are warranted (for example where daily maintenance work is required), but we're not interested in it as we don't believe it would be fair for our customers. Even when we had a program which required daily maintenance we never charged subscriptions, even though we kept maintaining that program for our customers for the better part of three quarters of a decade - all for just one single inexpensive upfront registration back in the mid 90s.

Conventional programs (the majority of programs) take quite a while to build, but once made they don't require as much time updating or adding new features as all the main work has already been done. It still does cost the developer(s) time, money and resources to make such minor updates available for free, but those costs can be accounted for in the initial purchase price. TDS aside, all of our programs are conventional in that sense, so we would never expect any of our customers to pay subscriptions for them, and we remain committed to offering our software at the lowest possible prices. (Some of the most advanced kernel-level security software ever released for just $29? Maybe I am going crazy ...)

 

yes you are Wayne .. you should be punished ...

 

Wayne

I'm very much a newb to these forums and security in general.

Having asked for advise in these forums I have SpyBot ( for free)Adaware ( for free) Spyware Blaster (for free) trialled and now run Ewido for free) A2 (for free) Trojan Hunter Paid trialled twice (for free) TDS-3 trialled (for free) intend to try OA (for free)and amongst other things now have now paid for PG full I really don't see how you can or why you should justify your actions any further.

Your company produces outstanding value for money products as do others - witness your support for these forums and others with new to market products like Mike Nash with Online Armor.

I bank on line and without these forums and products such as PG I would feel vulnerable.

Sometimes I read threads from people here that expect everything for nothing

Thats not the way world works.

Good luck - I know very little but you have my support

Cheers

Jon

 

I really don't see how you can or why you should justify your actions any further.[/QUOTE]

If the people here can show him a way to make DCS better, why shouldn't he take the advice and after all we are his customers and he wants to please the customer.

 

I agree that it is paramount to please your customers. But if you are supporting multiple types and versions of softwares and one of them is causing you to have trouble maintaining the other programs for the (customers) it only makes good bussiness sense to get rid of the program that is causing the hardship to the customers and the company. Anyone that can't understand this has no idea of what it takes to run a bussiness. I believe DCS has done what was necessary to keep ther company afloat and be able to keep on supporting the customers of their other products.

bigc

 

Hi bigc,

I did run, and was on on the board of directors, of several businesses large and small. It would never occur to me to do what DCS did in regards to terminating a critical product, without warning, on a Friday evening. It is, in my opinion, very poor business practice and shows a willful disregard of customers.

When faced with similar problems, I not only went out of my way to make sure that customers were supported for a period of time until they could transition to another product, I, on some occassions, used my own personal money to make customers whole.

DCS's approach is certainly open to criticism. Clearly, the world is big, and there are numerous points of view. However, I think it is very easy, for someone who understands and runs businesses, to make a case that DCS's decisions in this case were imprudent and ill-advised. Anyway, time will tell.

Regards,
Rich

 

Rich,
We're more than open to criticism which is why all these threads are still open and why i've responded to hundreds of emails this week, but don't you think we would've given more notice if we could? We didn't give any notice for the discontinuation of TDS for several reasons, some of which I haven't/can't disclose as they're private business matters so you don't know the full story therefore I ask you not to assume that we were in a position to do so, thanks mate (can't blame you though as you can only make assumptions based on what you know). However giving notice actually would've done very little anyway if you think about it - the program was going to be stopped anyway, so when that decision was made to stop development it became the best interests of our customers to stop immediately, not keep it dragging on even further. This is obviously a big business decision, but we're not afraid to make the big decisions if it's in the best interests of our customers. What difference would another week or two's worth of databases make anyway? And regardless of how much notice we gave it still wouldn't affect the fact that there is going to be no TDS4. Obviously the more notice the better, but why do you actually need notice anyway, just to give you time to find another anti-trojan scanner? If people are after an alternative anti-trojan scanner I'd tell them don't bother, other anti-trojan developers are in the same boat as us regardless of what they do or don't tell you, and from my skills and experience over the years the performance of all anti-trojan scanners is going downhill, as there are just far, far too many trojans being released for those one-man operations to keep up. Just get a good anti-virus scanner, they're as good as if not better than anti-trojan scanners at detecting trojans these days, especially packed and modified ones. We will not release software if it isn't adequate at doing its job, and it's becoming increasingly clear that unless developers change their pricing structure (to raise funds to hire more analysts) and decide to work on nothing but their one anti-trojan program exclusively then they won't have any chance of getting anywhere near adequate/acceptable detection rates, and even then they'd still be competing with the anti-virus companies who have far more resources money and analysts. Customers shouldn't stand for software if it degrades like that, and I will not develop/release software that doesn't do its job properly, especially when we could be working on better software for our customers.

Best regards,
Wayne

 

Hi Wayne,

Thanks for clarifying your position and views. As always,

Warm regards,
Rich

 

Yes, I give Wayne thanks too and everyone else. Sometimes making a decision and others knowing what all the intentions are can be a most difficult thing to see. One thing for sure is that everyone is the same in regards to being responsible for their own choices based on what they know and understand. So, its only sensible to respect each others decisions whether they are likable or not.

 

I must say this is a pretty strange thread.

The customers are clamouring to pay a subscription fee, but the vendors are refusing .

I wonder how many customers they will lose because of this decision.

 

The Grand Champion of lifetime free upgrades and still going strong:

Total Commander, formerly Windows Commander.

It's been around forever, continues to have regular significant upgrades and continues on a torrid pace to get new customers. It's possible!

PS:
For those people that give Total Commander a bad review, you haven't looked under the hood. This is an amazing program that isn't bloatware.

 

Yes it certainly is possible. For example, TDS existed on a single registration for the better part of three quarters of a decade, which is a long time for any program but especially considering that TDS required fulltime daily maintenance by multiple people. Some people were lucky enough to buy TDS when it was TDS1 and only paid some $30 for it and that was back in approximately 1996, so if you assume 9 years of free updates with 365 days in a year it works out to 3285 days worth of updates at a cost of just $0.009 per day (yes, not even 1 cent) which is all they've ever paid - not much considering the daily maintenance required to keep the program running.

 

I sure am glad Wayne's old school. I bought all your products because I recognized this old fashion business model of actually caring for your customers without it being a farce like a lot of "caring" businesses today.

Also they offered me a lot of capabilities I did not know were available in windows. DCS provides me a window or doorway back into the nitty gritty of personal computers . That has cost me a lot of money in the last year though.

Quite a few other small software companies have benefitted by my exposure to DCS. So even if the financial fruit of DCS is somewaht meager or parasite ridden, No small amount of self satisfaction that you have benefitted the community as a whole is rightfully yours. THAT subscription you can draw on for as long as you live. You have in your own way reached quite broad arms across the globe.

To stay on topic I would never consider subscription fees on a product that didn't require constant new data like the signature data base. One thing I might consider though is a per infestation removal fee. I know this model reeks of a certain spyware companies model of free then 30 some bucks for the program to remove the bogus spyware, half of which was never there. But its just an idea for a new business model that would reflect customer percieved value and at the same time reward a company for the support it sometimes takes to rid someone of these deeply burried problems. Only a company steeped in integrity or new with honest roots could get away with this because the backlash might be heavy.

 

Every good security product needs constant updating. The database is simply one aspect. For example, the scan engine in an AV needs constant updating. The "heuristics" engine in an AT needs constant research and updating. Over the next several months, I expect that Online Armor will spend tens of thousands of dollars upgrading the "intelligence" in their product.

A "one time" charge essentially means that future customers will be subsidizing the upgrades (if any ever come) for current customers. It will be interesting to see who this all turns out, since clearly competitors such as Safe N' Sec and Online Armor recognize the need for a recurring revenue stream in order to pay for future upgrades in security.

Rich

 

PG isnt a antivirus app or a antispyware app & it doesnt need constant updates so why should most folk even consider a subscription for it, maybe U would like to do that RichF & have the funds to do it but not everyone has.

Simply put if PG was to go subscription based then i would drop it right away & use other apps instead.

Bringing up this topic while there is still a lot of anger about TDS isnt gonna do DCS any good at all.

 

That is the normal pattern for most software since sales start off low and (if the program is any good) should increase as time passes. Signature-based programs incur greater maintenance costs due not only to the work required by the developer to keep databases current but also the increased bandwidth cost due to frequent updates.

However making a regular payment compulsory for software not requiring such maintenance effectively reduces customers from "owners" to "renters" - the company no longer has to bother with providing upgrades in order to keep the money rolling in (as in Microsoft's Licensing 6).

A good reason to steer clear of Safe'N'Sec in my view but Online Armor only requires further payments if you wish to upgrade after the first year, there is nothing on TallEmu's pricing page about mandatory payments after purchase.

 

You would not need to pay a subscription if you were satisified with the product as is. You simply would not be able to take advantage of future updates which subscribers would be paying for. (Someone has to pay for development time).

Alternatively, you can move to a free HIPS product such as AntiHook (which as far as I can tell has less capabilities than PG at this time), or you can move to Safe N' Sec or Online Armor both of which have yearly subscription fees to pay for future enhancements and development. Of course, anyone not interested in future enhancements can simply not renew the license. Those who do, will benefit from the new upgrades.

Of course, this is a theoretical. Wayne has indicated that he plans to continue to sell his products on a one-off with permanent updates and upgrades available to anyone who purchases a license. It will be interesting to see if DCS can maintain a competitive product and support structure with this business model and revenue stream, since competitors will have a recurring stream of revenue which can be used to support the product.

Rich

 

Hi P2000,

You will note that there are some pretty long "wish list" threads for both ProcessGuard and Online Armor and Mike Nash (of Online Armor) has indicated that he has a very large system specification document outlining lots of future enhancements to this product. It will be up to users to decide whether or not they want to pay $15 a year to obtain these Online Armor upgrades. My best guess is that almost every user will. In the scheme of things, $15 is not very much. It is the price of two six-packs, or a family dinner at Boston Chicken. But each person has his/her own priorities.

Cya,
Rich

 

What you are then talking about is not a subscription, but an (optional) upgrade payment - subscriptions entitle a purchaser to a service or product for a specific time so it is important to distinguish between software where future payments are mandatory (most anti-virus software, Safe'n'Sec) and where they are optional, not least since mandatory software is tied to the developer - if they go under then so does the software.

 

Thank you for pointing out the distinction. I believe that this is an important distinction to make.

Rich

 

DCS isn't a "person" it's a company. There's a major difference between the two entities.

Companies hire or rent situational experts all the time. Moreover, it wouldn't have taken a business school graduate to know that their chosen approach to handling the cancellation of TDS wouldn't go over too well.

Okay. All this says, though, is that they should have hired-in someone who understands sustainable business models, revenue flow and PR, right at first.

A break? Not in my book. What they deserve, AFAIC is a healthy dose of skepticism tempered by the fact that they've produced some very powerful and innovative SW in the past.

As a savvy consumer, I'm not willing to be burned repeatedly out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. That's why I'll never buy another Saab. Sure, if DCS produces something interesting I'll be right there. However, I won't whip out my CC as quickly as I would have before this situation.

Help them out! This is an interesting choice of words. I've been more than pleased with PG, and TDS-3 before it. If Wayne says it's time to pay, as long as I can expect maintenance and all manner of upgrades in exchange I'll pay. As mentioned, the OP Pro model would work very well, for all concerned.

Perhaps I'm missing something. I just don't understand why DCS needs our collective approval to save itself from dissolution.

 

Would just like to point out that Winpatrol is free, but you can buy the Winpatrol Plus version for a one off lifetime fee. It's still conintuing to develop after many many years.