5.6 Workgroup upgrade to 6.0?

[cwirving]

I hadn't checked the Dantz website for a while and just figured out that Retrospect 6.0 is out.... But the upgrade options as a current owner of Retrospect 5.6 Workgroup mystify me:

 

 

 

Since there is no Workgroup edition anymore, the only choice in the upgrade matrix is to upgrade to the single server edition for over $100 more than I paid for the original product! Huh?

 

 

 

I haven't studied the feature set of the 6.0 Professional edition to see whether I could simply make do with that (and some extra client licenses) but, overall, I'm really wondering what other folks that use(d) Workgroup have done. I don't have any Windows 2000/NT Server machines so Workgroup used to be just great for me but I guess that this can't have been a very popular scenario since it has gone away.

 

 

 

Suggestions, please?

 

 

 

cwi

[AmyJ]

The Workgroup edition has been replaced by the Single Server edition. The Single Server comes with unlimited client licenses, where the Workgroup edition came bundled with 20. OS X client support is now included and Open File backup is optionally available.

[cwirving]

Well, it isn't really my place to question the Dantz's packaging/pricing strategy, but it really does appear weird -- especially now that I've studied the 6.0 product matrix. Let me explain: the small nonprofit organization I volunteer for doesn't have any Windows Server machines simply because the OS cost is prohibitive: spend $500 on the hardware then spend the price of a small car on the OS just to unlock a few file sharing limits? No way! Right now we've got Windows workstations exclusively but we'd like to migrate to maybe one or two Linux or xBSD machines for lightweight server duties such as file serving and/or a web server.

 

 

 

Where I have a hard time with the new pricing is that, OK, you want to charge more if I have a server -- that's fair, and I'm not even going to question your logic that Linux boxes are servers -- but, if I'm a cost-sensitive customer, doesn't it make sense to you that if I had *one* server, it could be a Linux box? So, in that context, the single-server edition misses the boat completely: I still can't back up my Linux box and I've spent 4+ times the price of a Professional copy of Retrospect.

 

 

 

So, I guess that the moral of the story is that as long as I don't have any Genuine Windows Servers, I might as well throw away my copy of 5.6 Workstation, buy a new copy of 6.0 Professional and a couple of client licenses and make do with them. Or, look for a competitive product -- which would be a shame.