Can someone decrypt the licensing info?

[robognome]

The product feature page gives a very clear breakdown between the Pro Edition Base and Pro Edition Full. Okay. Cool.

Now visit the pricing page (monthly). Instead there is a Pro Edition Basic (same as Pro Edition Base?), Pro Edition 10, 30 etc.

--snipped rant--

Anxiously awaiting the secret key to decrypting your information pages,

Mark

[demostorm]

The product feature page gives a very clear breakdown between the Pro Edition Base and Pro Edition Full. Okay. Cool.

Now visit the pricing page (monthly). Instead there is a Pro Edition Basic (same as Pro Edition Base?), Pro Edition 10, 30 etc.

--snipped rant--

Anxiously awaiting the secret key to decrypting your information pages,

Mark

What exactly do you need decrypted? click the purchase now button and it will tell you what licenses are included with each package. Pro base (basic) has no additional licensed modules. Pro server has 30 licenses of the additional modules and unlimited has unlimited additional licenses on a single server. Pro base/basic is simply the system with no additional modules (ecommerce, newsletter, gallery etc.)

Pro base 30, 100 and unlimted are all full packages since they give the client all (full) the features of Soholaunch - its just a matter of how many licenses of full you want..

[robognome]

Thank you demostorm. Equating 'basic' to 'base' was my initial guess but I don't like making judgements based on assumption and guess, especially when making purchases from new vendors. Obfuscation, even when accidental, breeds mistrust.

Since you don't appear to be "staff", I appreciate you taking to time to carify this for me.

[robognome]

Okay, SohoLaunch, I've been informed that Pro Edition Base == Pro Edition Basic. Unfortunately that raises more questions about your prices and licensing.

The price page says you get Zero (0) licenses for the "Blog Manager" with the Pro Edition Base but the 'Basic' version under Product Details / Feature Comparison show that the Base _does_ include "Web Blogs". If I assume they are 2 different things then why is there no mention of Blog Manager in the feature comparison. If I assume they are the same them why is is listed and part of the Base on one page but show 0 license included on the monthly price page?

There is a similar inconsistancy with 'site statistics' .It isn't in the base nor is it shown under the monthly license page. Is this just another inadvertent inconsistency or are site statistics an addition cost after I have purchased the license for the other advanced modules?


The rest of the features appear to match if one makes the following assumptions in name matching:

eCommerse == Shopping Cart
eNewsletter == E-Mail Newsletter
Site Security == Secure Users

Based on the above, however, I would not be suprised to learn that this mapping is incorrect.

BTW, does you site builder introduce this level of inconsistency?

These don't take a genius to sort out but they add to frustration of new visitors and you loose trust. Like right now I seriously distrust your ability to build a user friendly site builder and I have some level of doubt about whether there are some hidden Gotchas in your licensing.

I would really like to hear from soholaunch people on this.

[demostorm]

You are right I am not a Soholaunch representative which which is why I will say this -

I have every confidence that you can be more gracious than that.

Come on. My pre adolescent son can figure out that base and basic are the same. Thats just nitpicking. Your only valid point of contention is the blog issue whether or not it has the blogs in the base. Point taken but thats the only point. The secure user thing is equally clear. It says so right under the heading your referred to - "Create an unlimited number of secure users" . So of course "secure user is the same thing. which takes care of - * Site Security == Secure Users

Following on -

* eCommerse == Shopping Cart

Again Of course and you know that because you came to the same conclusion . Can you think of any possible way an application would have a cart and NOT have ecommerce capabilities!!!

* eNewsletter == E-Mail Newsletter

Unless you know of some other way to send a newsletter. As for site statistics. isn't it clear right here whats included and whats not (except for the blog issue which you are admitedly right on)

http://info.soholaunch.com/index.php?pr=Product_Details


>>>Like right now I seriously distrust your ability to build a user friendly site builder and I have some level of doubt about whether there are some hidden Gotchas in your licensing.<<<

If you think that base being called basic is a gotcha you probably have an affinity to conspiracy theories and when those get going no amount of evidence can dissuade the believers in them that they are incorrect and are pointless in rebutting (any further) but stop a minute and be honest - can you really make any remotely solid case for your mistrust based on these obvious descriptions? I mean to anyone else but yourself?

Of course everyone on these boards that uses Soholaunch (or actually seen it in action) can't help but smirk at the idea that they likely lack the ability to make a user friendly sitebuilder. Shouldn't you at first even look at it rather than quibble about base and basic not being the same? Fair is fair.

Every once in awhile we get someone on these boards that is mortified that Soholaunch is in Fantastico and not free (as if fantastico is free) and there is no satisfying them after that. If I am wrong I apologize but I am getting the sense this is one of those times.

Soholaunch is a good product that will get better. Don't let baseless conspiracy theories cause your customers to miss out and if you do there are quite a few hosts that will be happy. In their case the less hosts that use Soholaunch the merrier. All in all your claim that base and basic are attempts at Obfuscation is just sad.

[robognome]

Demostorm:

It seems you thought my response to you was insincere or sarcastic. My gratitude was genuine. I accept blame for not making that clear. On review the gratitute does read as a little muted.

However, my follow-up post was in no way directed toward you. Yet you responded by intimating that my questions are a reflection on me, rather than legitemate. That's getting a little personal. Perhaps that was a reaction to my perceived insincere gratitude. As to my "points of contention", well, I'm not in contention here, period. This isn't a competition.

It's clear you have some loyalty to the product, I just wish I could personally experience evidence that it is justified. Testimonials only go so far. Maybe I'll sign up for one month of of Basic, but that seems like rewarding inattention.

I will try resolve this with the company directly. I thnk I saw a support page around here somewhere.

[demostorm]

Demostorm:

Yet you responded by intimating that my questions are a reflection on me, rather than legitemate. That's getting a little personal. Perhaps that was a reaction to my perceived insincere gratitude.


Actually I don't have a problem with you expressing gratitude or not. Never crossed my mind that you weren't showing gratitude. I just didn't think your comments were fair. I don't know about you but if you suggest that a group of people are trying to hide gotchas in their licenses - thats very personal in itself. Its pretty much an accusation of dishonesty/sleaziness and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the rational for that was - thats all.

I don't know you and you don't know me so its definitely not personal. The comment about Fantastico users that are upset over Soholaunch not being free is just a matter of experience. In my experience when there is a high level of animosity/distrust that doesn't seem to have a solid basis its usually related to price. Since $9.95 for the base/basic is cheap in Soholaunch's case its usually being upset that it costs anything at all. If in your case that is not the case I'll be content in just not understanding the basis.

Now I can understand your comment about inattention. Things have been quiet around here recently. I am hoping thats because they areworking on big changes for version 3. I still think phone contact gives much better results but thats not feasible for everbody so that needs to be addressed once and for all

[robognome]

No worries, Demostorm. I've been in direct email contact with Jim Buckler. I sent him a list of picky licensing questions but I sure it's past their bedtime so I expect response from him tomorrow.

I didn't explain the trust issue very well. Trust is not alway about motives, although that is sometimes a part of it. More often it's about trusting someone to be attentive enough to not end up in a train wreck down the track.

When I see many small (picky) inconsistencies, it is a red flag for me that there is a good chance that there will be a misunderstanding, or unwelcome suprise somewhere along the line. But usually it just makes things marginally more difficult to sort out, like a bad connection. I guess it's obvious that I find that irritating.

I'll try to keep the whine out of my posts in the future, but no promises.

[demostorm]

I'll try to keep the whine out of my posts in the future, but no promises.

No worry. I'll be here to point out when and if they have little basis/base ;) or to agree with you heartily if they do. I think I have answered all your questions. Jim can field anymore you have although I must say as a fellow customer I hope I am never waiting on line while a Soholaunch employee has to be answering the difference between base and basic and shopping cart and ecommerce package from a host. I'd be the annoyed one there. No support/sales human resource is unlimited if everyone saw red flags where there are none it would slow things down for us all. Part of being in a community. Nuff said.

[Nada]

Nuff said? I don't think so. I complete agree with robognome.

I like to take advantage of the scripts that can be installed via Fantastico, consequently, I was intrigued by the new SoHoLaunch. Like most of us who would are basically cheap/frugal/chintzy, I would rather utilize all the free scripts I can before paying for commercial versions. Needless to say, I too, was a little miffed to find out that I was deceived into thinking it was free but because it looked fairly decent, I decided to check out the web site. I find it to be written in a very unclear and confusing manner and it lacks information. Full product detail gives people a warm and fuzzy for buying. I still can't tell what this SoHoLaunch thing is all about.

I certainly understand loyalty but when it is so blind that someone defends problems that others see and claim THEY have the problem, then you are not the person to give the product advice to people. I too, would like to hear from the SoHoLaunch people. As a vendor, if you have a group of people of average intelligence who don't understand something about your product, then you, as a vendor, have a problem.

[demostorm]

Actually robognome didn't express your opinion. It was my guess. But you have proven my point . The real criticism is usually hidden under the surface - I want it for free and my hosts doesn't provide it for free so Soholaunch (never mind it was Fantastico's decision to include it) is to blame for putting it into Fantastico.

But the real joke of the situation? YOU CAN GET SOHOLAUNCH FOR FREE. Many hosts provide it for free. They pick up the miniscule costs in precisely the same way that they pick up the cost of Fantastico. Thats right. Anothe shocker to some - Fantastico costs your hosts $90 and annual fees after that. Its NOT a free application. It costs just to install free applications :eek: ? Yep. So you are with a cheap host that doesn't want to provide it. Thats Soholaunch's fault?

Soholaunch is precisely for the same market of Hosts that BUY Fantastico. Same thing only that the administrative side of Fantastico is completley hidden from the end user so they don't know it costs money.

If anyone deceived anyone it was your host. Many of them are advertising it knowing full well that they are utilizing a trial product. This is the market that we have created for ourselves. Hosts that would rather leave customers hanging after their trial than pay $9.95 per month to use it on UNLIMITED accounts. Thats where our being "cheap/frugal/chintzy" (your words not mine) have led us - to a market that competes on the lowest price and could care less about adding additional features becasue they know all we care about is the lowest dollar amount so why even bother providing something that costs them 50 cents or less a month.

As for my intial comments - stand by them. point by point. Quibling over base and basic (as if they are not from the same base meaning. umm sorry - the same basic meaning.) has nothing to do with intelligence. Its emotional.

You are miffed that your hosts left you hanging. Only you don't know they did so you think Soholaunch is to blame. Thats also why you don't know what Soholaunch is all about. If your host provided it for free then you wouldn't need to be looking at licensing pages designed mostly for those looking into a server license.

Aural a new user here experienced the same realities and found herself another host after asking assistance here and on WHT.

So yes nuff was said on my part but you come from a slightly different perspective so I added a little more. :p Besides how can anyone claim there is not enough information on Soholaunch's site to know what the application is about when there are flash demos of every single feature of the application. Sorry not buying it. Things have to make sense for me and that just doesn't add up

[Adrian]

Needless to say, I too, was a little miffed to find out that I was deceived into thinking it was free but because it looked fairly decent, I decided to check out the web site. I find it to be written in a very unclear and confusing manner and it lacks information. Full product detail gives people a warm and fuzzy for buying. I still can't tell what this SoHoLaunch thing is all about.

I'm very surprised by your feedback considering that Soholaunch just recently re-designed their entire web site to be even more informative and user-friendly. Perhaps the Flash tutorials (http://info.soholaunch.com/index.php?pr=Flash_Tutorials) can give you a much better understanding of what Soholaunch is all about.

[Nada]

Sorry, but I just don't get the warm and fuzzies from the new design. I think I will hold off for awhile until I find out more elsewhere.

[demostorm]

Sorry, but I just don't get the warm and fuzzies from the new design. I think I will hold off for awhile until I find out more elsewhere.

Adrian won't come out straight and tell you but he's one of those hosts that provides soholaunch for free in his packages (starting at $8.95) . I'm not affiliated with his organization in any way so I feel free to tell you that he has a solid reputation, a 30 day money back guarantee, good support infrastructure and one of the things I always look for - community forums.

His packages are here - http://www.icestorm.com/webhosting.html

[webdev]

Hello Everyone..

In regards to the soholaunch design, Most businesses that provide thier own designs run into this very same problem.. It's also the reason why most businesses now use a corporate designer since sales and repeat customers rely very heavily on a professionally designed web site.

In regards to this thread:

One thing to realize is that SohoLaunch does not provide hosting. As with the Ghost Town post, Quick research shows that of 300+ members to this forum, yet a quick search in google.com shows somewhere upwards of 1000+ active SohoLaunch users.

The goal of most web hosts are to bundle various types of software into thier hosting packages. 98% of any host with solid finacial backing does this. It's how hosts compete. It's what makes cpanel one of the most popular contol panels. It's the added value and benefit that draws new customers.

I'd be willing to guess that 90% of all SohoLaunch users have never even been to the soholaunch web site because most hosts offer the software under it's own unique name. But then, there is a select few who who tell you what software they use and or provide links to soholaunch.com for reference.

Just a thought,
Webdev