Sitefinity Q2 Roadmap is published

Hello all,

The Roadmap for Sitefinity Q2 release has been published. Please check it out here - http://www.sitefinity.com/asp-net-cms-features/roadmap.aspx and let us know if you have any comments.

Best wishes,
Sitefinity team

Aww common....e-Commerce Paid Addon to standard?

I thought the plan was to start adding in free modules to flesh out the cms so we can give our clients more value for the $2000 ($400/yr) cost?

I can understand perhaps if it was a paid addon to SBE, and maybe somehow restricted to Standard (and unrestricted above that)...at the very LEAST don't have the Std version cost more than $500 as an addon.  For 3.x Mallsoft only cost $900 by itself + SF3 @ $900 = $200 less than SF4 standard.  What about it's active as long as you have an active SF subscription?  I'm dealing with sites in the $6-8000 range (for quotes).  So $2500 to the designer, $2000 for the CMS, and that doesn't leave a helluva ton leftover for all the work\customization involved.  e-Commerce was supposed to be a BIG selling feature!

Where are the lists\polls, etc modules?  Missing from the lists or bumped?

Also Q1 SP1 newsletter subscriber restrictions...?  Are we to have a subscribe link on a page, and then just stop using it once the limit gets to 10,000?  It's something totally out of our control as to who subscribes, and 20,000 subscribers doesn't necessarily mean you're making any more money than when you had 10,000 users.  It's not like anyone pays to join a newsletter, they're more irritating than anything.  So your options are delete people who want to be on it, or pay $5000 more to get Premium?

LIKE:
Configuration options for RadEditor in the Backend
RadEditor tools and option will be set via the Backend user interface.

Forms Updates

Support for alternative file storage: Amazon S3, Azure, file system (but this is a 3.x feature missing from 4, not necessarily new)

Hi Steve,

If you look at the pricing model of other CMS systems you'll find e-commerce often being a paid add-on in the lower-end editions and included out of the box in the higher-end licenses. This is a standard and well accepted model so we are not introducing anything different here. E-commerce is not just a module, it's a product of its own. Most people who have developed or used one would agree with this.
It's true - the Mallsoft e-commerce module had a base license option of $900, but they also had license options for $1,500 and $3,000. My point is we should not always look at the lowest price out there and use it as a benchmark(i know it's tempting if you are the customer), but for what works for you and for comparable options. It's too early to comment on the price/value ratio of the e-commerce module as we don't have the initial release out the door yet, but we can revisit this discussion after the 4.2 release this summer.

The lists module will make it in the 4.1 release due next week and that's why it's not on this roadmap. The Forms module can be used to create simple Polls and works in this scenario for some of our customers. We believe that the things we will be working on for 4.2 are more important to our clients than the Polls module so that's why it didn't make it on the roadmap.

As for the Newsletter module subscriber limitation, limiting the number of subscribers is a standard limitation for many newsletter/email campaign tools. It's true that how many people subscribe is out of your control(though we all work on increasing this number constantly) but like with other things in the system the licensing scales with the increased usage. We do realize that this doesn't apply to all scenarios(nothing does) but in many cases if you have more than 10,000 active subscribers you are running a decent size business and this is an efficient marketing and sales tool which helps drive revenue. It's pointless to argue whether this is always the case or not, but this is our(and many other vendors') thinking.


Thanks
Martin Kirov
Sitefinity team

Whoops, Martin beat me to the reply.  ;)

--

Hey Steve,

It's always hard for me to reply to posts like this.  Even more so from you (given your incredible contributions to the community):

I'm dealing with sites in the $6-8000 range (for quotes).  So $2500 to the designer, $2000 for the CMS, and that doesn't leave a helluva ton leftover for all the work\customization involved.

From our perspective, the pricing is fairly consistent with the industry.  In fact, even with the new pricing Sitefinity is frequently described as cheap by analysts (CMS Watch).  That doesn't mean it's true though, it simply suggests the range of opinion on this subject.

But all we can really do is research the market, gather reactions like this and modify our strategy if needed.  I don't personally have a horse in this race (I'm uninvolved with pricing & licensing).  However, I know where we want to go with Sitefinity and our old pricing wasn't going to get us there.

Regarding your client's budget & requirements; it's unfair to hold us responsible for this.  Nor do we feel an obligation to underprice the product so others can make more profit.  The CMS is an important piece of the project and we're merely trying to establish a fair price for our contributions.  

All this being said, I know the vision is to have a solution for projects of every size.  We like the idea of a web site growing up with Sitefinity.  This is easier said than done though.  What constitutes a grown-up project?  The last time we had this conversation, we saw considerable disagreement.  But it sounds like this area is where compromise is most likely.  We're continually working to define the needs of our various audiences.

Anyway, we continue to watch these comments and internally we discuss all of this (a lot!).  Thanks as always for your feedback.

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

Hello,

In regards to "Concurrent users number will include logged backend users"...

So if someone is in a role to edit a page and they are on the page but not editing (although they can at any moment choose to do so) they are not counted toward the concurrent limit until they press the edit button? After they finish the editing and press done they again are removed from the concurrent backend users?

If so, thank you for this. It makes so much more sense.

If not what am I missing?

John

Hello Gabe and Martin,

The response to some questions/comments on November 11 by Vassil seems to paint a different picture of future feature sets (my bolding) :

VT>> That's the real problem guys. You don't see too many features on the check-list level and you don't see a big distinction between the feature sets of the different editions. We know that and we'll fix it pretty quickly. The decision that we had to make was the following - do we release some features at a low price and then increase prices every time we pull out a major release or add major new functionality OR we set the foundation once and then just focus on pumping out new features across all versions.

We opted for the second approach. While it might not work in our favor at the moment and it creates a lot of the anxiety in the discussion, it will yield better long-term results for us and for you guys. You will get all updates, major or minor, as long as you maintain your subscription, you will get updates to all editions (we won't beef up only the expensive SKUs) and you will see only improvements in the value equation as time goes on. I am sure that this will give you a lot more predictability as well. 4.0 is a big change for us - in terms of underlying technology and in terms of business model and we wanted in both aspects to come up with a model that we will not change in the years to come.

The only new feature seems to be the E-Commerce module and that is not included in the Standard Edition. I am sure it is difficult that every new announcement that would hopefully get alot of positive responses is met with this type of feedback; however, it feels like the Standard Edition is turning into the 'you should be able to pay more if you are a real company" edition.

I just feel like you are making arguments from different sides depending on what the argument is.
 
If it has to do with user/load restrictions you say (my interpretation)

"we give you everything....except....we restrict your ability to interact with these features. As your business grows and you need o place a higher loads on the system then you will probably be making more money at that point and be able to afford what you need"

If it has to do with features (again, my interpretation)

"competitors don't give you these things, why should we."

Perhaps both apply.

Also, in regards to the comment "Regarding your client's budget & requirements; it's unfair to hold us responsible for this". If they buy a license for a product within their budget with a defined feature set and a service subscription that specifically says 'unlimited' in certain respects, when that unlimited is taken away, you have affected their budget and I believe it is fair to consider you responsible for this. Perhaps you can justify it but you are still responsible.

Please consider these comments in future decisions.

Thanks,
John

Hi Telerik,

which way you went with Sitefinity meets with incomprehension in my existing and potential customers. By Sitefinity 4 Presentations was mentioned many modules that are part of CMS (also eCommerce module). After putting on the market these modules are not yet part of Sitefinity and currently is under development and customer has to pay for them? I sold Sitefinity license to One customer regarding information through that part of the eCommerce module, which is under development and will be part of CMS!! And now? Sorry, but you must still pay for the eCommerce module. Do you know where will me send my customer? It certainly do not want to hear! The next introduction of new versions provide comprehensive information on licensing and scope of each version. In the webinars, which I attended was no mention of a supplement modules and all modules have been mentioned as part of CMS! Based on this information, I did offer to customers. And one more thing: even in the plans for Q2 I see no Forums module! Customer waiting to migrate to Sitefinity 4 because of this module, when the will finally finished?

Forums module propably Q3, at least make it right, that the customer can migrate from 3.7 Forum !!!

Hi,

Hmm, I also didn't expect the eCommerce module to be a paid add on (for the Standard Edition). That may be caused by my lack of knowledge of other CMS's and what's "common". But I've also been reading the extensive discussions we've had when the new pricing model was just introduced. In the longest thread about the licensing, Phill Hodgkinson asks:
"Are you guys going to tack on another 10 grand when you finally get a shopping cart module setup and how will that play into the number of pages?"
Vassil answers: "No, we are not. We will be adding all kinds of nice features across all SKUs without touching the price. That's the idea."

Comments like this one and the one John S just quoted lead me to believe that new features would be included at no additional cost. Did I miss something? Did the strategy change? Will there be more modules that need to be paid for?

Positive note: Thumbs up for the flexibility of the eCommerce module! The features are looking good.

Another concern is the one Pavol already expressed here: there is no Forums module announced. According to this thread, it would be included in Q1 or Q2 2011. When is it going to be released?

Can anyone from Telerik tell a bit more about which future modules will be paid add ons? I'm still confused about what to expect now the ecommerce module turns out not to be included in the standard license.

Thanks!

@Steve, once I can actually get a site upgraded and working on 4.1 I'm going to work on integrating the eComm solution from http://vevocart.com/ I honestly don't believe that Q2 will be on time and I definitely have zero confidence that it will work as currently described, there will be functionality that doesn't make it in and countless bugs. If Telerik surprises me then good for them (I hope they do), but right now I've been burned too much and need to look at other solutions to try to win back my customers confidence. 

At the current rate of issues I'm having with 4.1 it will be a while before I start, but I will let you know how it goes when I get there and I'm more than willing to share my experiences with it.

Cheers,
Phill

Thank you all for your feedback. Looking at the comments below, I see two things that I feel I need to address:

1. What modules go to what license editions
2. The declined confidence of our customers about our ability to hit the release dates we've committed to and the expected bugs and issues with upcoming releases.

1. Around the time of every release we announce the roadmap for the next one. In the roadmap we say which features will be part of which license editions well before the release comes out. Vassil did say that our development will benefit all editions with each release and that holds true. From everything that was released with 4.1 and will be released with 4.2 this summer, e-commerce is the only thing that was restricted license wise. Everything else is delivered to all editions. This is more than 6 months of development and only one feature which is limited. We did not say that all features will go in all editions because this does not make sense if you have different editions with different pricing. We said that "we won't  beef up only the expensive SKUs" and I don't think we are doing that. Going forward, some features will be part of the more expensive editions but many new features will go in all editions so every license holder will get their subscriptions' value.

2. We do understand that your confidence in our ability to release on schedule has declined. All of you who have been long enough with Sitefinity know that we've missed previous releases by much more than a week or two. As unfortunate as that is, we've gone from delays in (many)months to delays in weeks which is significant progress(though we still have a lot of work to keep up with your expectations). Our planning and development process is evolving quickly and after 1-2 releases we won't be missing the release target any more. I understand that these words probably hold little value right now as you've heard more than enough promises that we couldn't back up with actions. Challenges with hitting the release target are not something unusual in the software industry and this has happened in other product teams at Telerik before and now all of them release on schedule every time. Like i said - you've heard enough promises from us so consider this a statement of our ongoing commitment to improve.
We do feel that we need to make it up to our customers for the lower-than-expected product quality of the Sitefinity 4 release. Many of you are developers yourselves so you know that similar challenges are to be expected with any initial release, though i know it does not make the pain go away. I'd like to use this opportunity to announce something that we've been thinking about but is yet to be officially announced:

We will extend the subscriptions of all licenses and upgrades purchased between the Sitefinity RC release(November 18, 2010) and the recent 4.1 release on April 19. The subscriptions of all licenses and upgrades purchased during that time will be set to start on April 19. We do realize that the quality and feature set of the official Sitefinity 4 release was below what was expected so we are extending your subscriptions to start with the 4.1 release which is more stable and has more features.

As a special courtesy to all early adopters of Sitefinity 4, we will provide a complimentary e-commerce module add-on(worth $1999) to all Sitefinity Standard Edition(Professional and Enterprise will get it by default) holders who purchased their licenses between November 18, 2010 and April 19, 2011. This upgrade will affect the subscription renewal costs so it will be optional and on demand.

As soon as we are ready to implement this in our system, we'll make an official announcement and all eligible license holders will receive a personal email from us with these options.


Thanks
Martin Kirov
Sitefinity team

Martin,

Thank you for addressing this question and for the generous e-commerce offering.

John

Many thanks for the update Martin!

This upgrade will affect the subscription renewal costs so it will be optional and on demand.

So, e-Commerce will be a yearly subscription at a $2000 price tag?  You know the cheapest version of mallsoft was $900 flat rate...

So breaking down the math
1) Standard $2000
2) Load Balanced $2000
3) eCommerce $2000 + recurring fee

So is the idea then that this is to push people into getting professional over standard?

Steve,

Perhaps I am wrong, I understood the post as saying that if we chose to use the e-commerce with our license then the renewal fee on our standard license would be inflated but by an amount along the lines of a typical renewal percentage for the e-commerce (I assumed the renewal for subscription would not be a 100% cost)

John

Hi Phil,

thanks for your tip of http://vevocart.com/ - it seems to be an excellent alternative for eCommerce. - What we need now is also a good working alternative for CMS. - As we can read in http://www.cmscritic.com there are some solutions ... It is all a domino effect. - We are loosing customers as long as Sitefinity does not work, so also Sitefinity will loose their developers.

Regards, Robert

@John
  Yeah that was my assumption as well :)  But the previous Mallsoft addon had no additional cost associated, and the renewal cost hasn't yet been specified, so it very well could be expensive.

The renewal terms have not changed - early(pre-expiry) subscription renewal rate is 20% of the license list price. In the case of the e-commerce add-on to Standard Edition, it practically doubles the initial license cost so it also doubles the renewal cost.
With regard to the Mallsoft e-commerce module, it had a price point of $900 but it also had a license that costs  $3000. I know it's tempting to provide examples with the cheapest possible alternative but this was a third party module and what we are currently working in is a fully integrated e-commerce solution that takes full advantage of the Sitefinity framework.  Mallsoft also(like any software product) had ongoing maintenance costs so the model is no different.


Thanks,
Martin

I chose the $900 as it was the closest match to what we'd be getting (not feature-wise, etc I know this is more advanced).  The $1,500 and $3,000 packages included the source code which I don't think you will be providing with the $2000 license.  Support and Maintenance it appears was optional on top of that price, and additionally we'd already be paying a support and maintenance on the CMS itself anyway.

Are they independent then?  Can someone opt to not update eCommerce and just continue S&M on the CMS?...or visa versa?

I think the $2000 keeps being the magical number to inflate the price into Pro being more attractive (where my theory of the 1 too many SKUs comes in again).

But that's fine, the license expiration bump is appreciated, thanks for considering us.

@Martin

Thanks you for prolonging the subscription for the early adapters. This is a fair move since when you bought 4.0 you really were not able to use it till April 19th

So it seems the price tag for e-commerce is out 2k (again thanks for a free license). However I must agree with some here that 2k for the CMS and 2k for the e-commerce is simply impossible for all small businesses to pay.

So once again I stay with what I said before. Eventhogh Telerik is trying to keep a small business base the focuse is clearly to bigger projects, firms, agencies.

To me one of the big problems seems that you will not be able to buy simply a store that has some CMS features. You have to buy the CMS as well. You seem to always think about the e-commerce as an add on to the CMS how about thinking the other way around.

@Sales of Telerik

Some of us are not really understanding the pricing and changes, desitions made by Telerik. Here I stated before as well. Who are we to tell Telerik how to run their business. If they want they can charge 2k and a case of bannanas for the CMS if they want. It is siply up to them - but some stuff still is hard to understand.

Take for example the late renewal. To me the marketing idea to a late renewal is. Ohh, you missed the date? NO problem we give you another 60 days to renew.  If anyone from Telerik can tell me why a late renewal is backdated then I would really learn something. We usually pay around 200 USD extra within the 60 day period. So what justifies the backdating of the licenses again. To me this is no curtosy just an extrem penalty. Yes I know whe had the extra support in this 60 days and support is excelent - but we also paid for that since the late renewal is priced higher. So I really would expect a late renewal to be dated from the time of the renewal and the extra cost covering the support for the 60 days.

@Phil
I have looked at e-commerce solutions that are free and I was litterly able to have it up and running in 5 minutes. But I would not link to these solutions here on the forum, since this is still an Telerik Forum :-) I hope you don't get me wrong

@Steve
I think once you need load balancing you have a certain project size so the cost come into perspective to make sense

Kind regards
Markus

@Markus
You seem to always think about the e-commerce as an add on to the CMS how about thinking the other way around.

I would disagree with that statement.  With it costing the exact same as the CMS (including yearly license) it's hardly seems like addon-pricing.  With that, do you get dedicated e-commerce support people or do poor Ivan and Radoslav have to keep handling these as well?

I have no problem with the $2000 if that's what the module costs, it's the renewal fee costing the same as the CMS I don't particularly like :/