The Pricing and Final Release Question...

Hi There,

I don't want to bring up a huge debate about pricing again, I just have a relatively simple question. It's been my understanding that the release date for SF4 is January 14th, this Friday. It's also my understanding that once released the new pricing goes into effect, so my costs now jump from $899 to $1999. 

However, my question (and major issue) is, that since the product which is 4 days away is missing many many features that were in SF3.0 and it is guaranteed to have a whole lot of known and unknown bugs are you still going to enforce the new pricing structure? I can't think of any other industry where they can role out a new product with known issues and charge more than double, it just doesn't seem right.

I'm curious to know the status/thoughts on this from Telerik. 

p.s. what happened to the weekly builds? I know this is extra work for you to build and release but if you're going to stop creating the releases don't you think a simple message to your community of devs would be a common courtesy?

Regards,
Phill

Phil
I read your comments with amusement.Telerik is a business, they have invested much time and money in this new product, and as such have a right to put a price on it.The bottom line is if you dont like it, stick with the previous version.They are not forcing you to buy this new version.
Moaning about the pricing and the features which dont match up to 3.7 is pointless , just use 3.7 else pay up and buy into their new product.
Simples.

Hi Phil,

The new pricing will become effective, as announced.
The major focus in the first half of the year will be to catch up 3.7 implementations, improvements are coming at a fast pace.

As to the nightly builds - those were put on hold due to pre-release preparation.
We are planning to resume the practice of releasing internal builds after the official release.

Regards,
Kalina
the Telerik team

Hi all,

I'm just starting a V4 implementation after 3 V3.7 projects. Is there a list of those features which are missing - I don't want to get too far down the line only to find out the feature hasn't been implemented.

I know this isn't related to the original question regarding pricing, so apologies fro jumping in!

Thanks
higgsy

@Kalina, thanks for the update, greatly appreciated. Look forward to those internal builds post release :)

@higgsy - I don't know of a diffinitive list but a couple of big issues for me are as follows: (if I get any of these wrong, my apologies and please correct me)
- No Forums
- No Newsletter Module
- No Polls
- No Wiki Module
- Content Editor - Can't insert image from file system (only from a gallery)
- Image Gallery - can no longer store images in file system, database only again
- Webkit browsers aren't fully supported in the admin

Also, here's a link of items Markus put together:
http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/general-discussions/looking-forward-to.aspx

Another list by alo:
http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/general-discussions/what-else-is-missing-from-4-0.aspx

If you want to know more just do a search for Q1 or Q2 or Q3 in the forum, if a feature is not going to be available at release they usually indicate what quarter. Not to be a pessimist, but if they say Q1 I would count on Q2 etc. just the realities of software development (and based on experience w/ SF3.x)

The other thing to keep in mind if you're targeting SF4 is that as of RC2 there are a LOT of bugs still in the system and right now with the release 4 days away I have a hard time believing all these bugs will be gone.

Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Phill

Hi

Anyone knows when Forums and Newsletter modules would be available?

Thanks

Regards

Hello,

We will have them on a later stage. These modules will not be included in the official release. The actual implementation of the modules will be discussed after the official release.

Regards,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

@John01

I trust it will be Q1 or Q2. Telerik will fast deliver missing featurs and fix bugs. So stay tuned for great things to come.

@rolls rolls
Sticking with 3.7 for 899.- will not be an option to my understanding after Friday. The sale of 3.7 will discontinue after the release of SF 4.0.  So in order to follow your advice you need to buy the 3.7 licences until January 14th.

Markus

@rolls rolls, yes you are correct, Telerik has all the right to charge what they want, however, generally when you release a new version of a product, you would expect improvements on allready existing features and new features. The issue a lot of people will have is that they have to pay more for less features, as it seems that a lot of existing features in 3.7 will not be available in 4.0.