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Did I miss 9.03, 9.04, 9.05,9.1,9.2,9.3 free upgrades?


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Where did I say I was promised?'

 

Where did I say updates were always free?

 

Interesting what other software you use, as none of my other mac software suppliers have your attitude or upgrade policy.

 

We can all use bold text and suggest support agreements, but most of us these days expect a minimum level of support and upgrades on our investment.

 

2 minor updates is well, disgraceful and not in line with the market.

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Where did I say I was promised?'

You implied that very strongly.

 

 

 

Where did I say updates were always free?

You didn't say that. I did say that.

 

 

 

Interesting what other software you use, as none of my other mac software suppliers have your attitude or upgrade policy.

Apple, for instance. If you bought Mac OS X 10.7, you get all 10.7.x versions for free. If you want 10.8, that's not free.

 

"Your attitude".

This is just a user-to-user discussion. I'm just a user as you are.

 

 

 

We can all use bold text and suggest support agreements, but most of us these days expect a minimum level of support and upgrades on our investment.

You get what you pay for. You pay minimum and you get a minimum of 30 days of support and free updates.

If you also pay for support, you get support and also free upgrades.

 

 

 

2 minor updates is well, disgraceful and not in line with the market.

Why do you think so? Perhaps that's all what is needed to get bug fixes out?
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Implication is not fact so don't put words in my mouth.

 

Interesting analogy when my Mountain Lion upgrade was 200+ extra features, only 20 pounds sterling and available forall my App store machines; and they did fix my support submission.

 

For Retrospect 10, I see 4 'new' features, plus 4 'improvements' for hundreds of pounds sterling, even for an upgrade.

 

You clearly missed my point, as annual upgrades are not an issue when you have fixed previous problems in the current version and give the customer good reasons to upgrade, like ML was an easy decision, rather then repackage previous faults in the old version as improved in the new version, while forcing me to upgrade IF I want the features that I have already paid for and submitted bug reports for.

 

So I am afraid your analogy doesn't work for me, as I say not market.

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Implication is not fact so don't put words in my mouth.

Well, you mentioned specific versions so I assumed you were promised them. I didn't think you made the whole thing up. Now I know you did.

 

 

 

Interesting analogy when my Mountain Lion upgrade was 200+ extra features, only 20 pounds sterling and available forall my App store machines; and they did fix my support submission.

Say you invest ten million dollars of R&D in a product that everybody uses, such as an operating system. If you sell ten million copies, you only have to earn a dollar each.

 

Say you invest ten million dollars of R&D in a specialized product that few companies uses, such as Retrospect. If you only sell ten thousand copies, you have to earn a thousand dollar each.

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You assumed; thats the problem here.

 

What do you think I made up again? Aren't you getting off the point a little here.

 

Interesting you feel the need to preach to me about IT business and the way it works for your example of market. So your example was clearly a poor choice as you patronisingly explain as if I were still at school; thanks for that.

 

Again you have moved off the point.

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This is just a user-to-user discussion. I'm just a user as you are.

Interesting you feel the need to preach to me about IT business and the way it works for your example of market. So your example was clearly a poor choice as you patronisingly explain as if I were still at school; thanks for that.

This is not MY market, as I explained before.
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Why do you think so? Perhaps that's all what is needed to get bug fixes out?

 

That's the rub- bugs have not been getting fixed, but getting rolled up into the new version after a couple of patches that fix only the most egregious ones. But there are lots of bugs described here and in the forums that have been unaddressed since 9.0.2 has been released. Generally, updates fix problems and upgrades add new functionality. Most users would prefer that the existing software work (i.e. get a good update) before adding new features (pay for an upgrade).

 

My personal view on this is that Retrospect has not been meeting revenue targets in this latest incarnation, and needed to put all efforts into a new version to get more revenue. Unfortunately this is putting a severe strain on the customer relationship with existing customers.

 

Were updates promised-not explicitly. But why file bug reports as suggested by support if there is no plan to do anything about them? Those updates were implied by soliciting the reports in the first place.

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mannp, I think you're right on. Lennart, I'm not sure what you're smoking, but to me, we Retrospect customers haven't been done right since the Great Debacle of Retrospect 8 began several years ago. Retrospect 9 should have been 8.3 at no charge (or at most a minimal upgrade fee). I'm not sure about v10, but when I put in one client's v8 multi-server license key and get the breath knocked out of me at the ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR upgrade price, I feel even more cheated than with the $900+ upgrade price to get v9. I cannot recommend this product to my clients while the upgrade pricing is so steep, yet takes exactly nothing of the history of suffering w/ this product that has occurred since v8 into account.

 

One thing I find completely amazing is that the Retrospect team has basically no interest in making the console work w/ more than one version of the engine. I have 8 - 10 or so clients using Retrospect 8, so I monitor and manage them all remotely w/ my Retro 8 Console. Yet somehow the development team thinks that if I get one client to upgrade to v9 (now v10), I can magically get all of the others upgrade at the same time, so that they all stay in lockstep on their version #. What's even worse is that I cannot run both Retro 8 and Retro 9 consoles in the same Mac user account, because v9 takes over v8's settings! Yes, their solution is to actually have me switch Mac user accounts to be able to maintain differing versions of Retrospect Server. And this is with what is now a $2000 full-price product, mind you! Maybe they got wise in v10-- I don't know-- but I doubt it. For that kind of money and that few a number of maintenance/bugfix releases, you'd think they could at least make the product work w/ other versions for admins like myself.

 

Fred Turner

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  • 2 weeks later...

Totally agree with Fred Turner and Mannp, I've been a user of Retrospect from the good old DiskFit direct days with Dantz, so feel I have some prior knowledge of the upgrade process and bug fixes one should expect.

Whilst Lennart is correct in saying the only way to get 'free' upgrasdes is to pay the ASM charge, it shouldn't be the only way. And as for Version 10 being new and improved, they can't even be bothered to update the user guide. For proof, just go the the Help menu and click on User guide, it comes back with a PDF of Version 8.

I really want to be able to use and recommend this program, but I'm fast running out of patience and on PC's we're moving to Acronis, which isn't by any means cheap, but the level of support is streets ahead of Retrospect.

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I gotta agree with mannp on this one—Retrospect 9.0.2 (which was barely an upgrade from 8.x.x) is FAR from being even CLOSE to stable, and here pops-up that old "upgrade to 10" window. WTF!? Even Retrospect developers themselves have admitted that v9 was a complete POS, and rather than fix it, they just release a "new" version? So very disappointed in this blatant attempt at ripping off their customers. I'm disgusted.

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It also occurs to me that another company has been implementing a similarly fast-paced "upgrade" rollout-- Parallels. I think Parallels is trying to see how quickly they can get to v20. You see maybe a couple of build updates before they announce the new, latest, greatest, world-changing (not) upgrade, usually well short of a year turnaround. I'm still disgusted w/ this policy, but less so than when I see it from Retrospect. Why? Because Parallels is usually $50-80 a pop...Retrospect is 10+ times that. And Parallels, at least, isn't as perpetually buggy as Retrospect!

 

Lennart, glad to see you don't like it either. Regarding your statement about making a living, they won't be able to do that @ Retrospect when everybody stops buying the products because they are not satisfied. I'm not sure how they don't see this. I'm just a lone consultant, but I support 8 customer installations of Retro 8, plus 4 more Retro 6. I haven't felt compelled to upgrade a SINGLE one of these to v9 or v10...how could I possibly justify $900 or more on a *gamble* that the software will run better, when this sort of thing should be provided for free?? Case in point-- I just put in a new server for a relatively new client. I've been so disheartened by Retro 8 & subsequent thievery w/ little improvement or listening to decades-loyal customers that I actually acquired an old Retro 6 copy to use instead. :(

 

Fred

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I just spoke to one of my resellers about this (mainly as to whether or not I'd be eligible for a free upgrade based on my purchase date) and their recommendation was to stop using Retrospect. And, while I have over 8 years of daily backups locked to Retrospect (in one form or another—for numerous servers, client machines, etc.—massive amounts of data across various generations of tape media), and all the experience maintaining Retrospect over the years, I'd have to agree—I think it's time to jump ship. I'd rather do it on my own schedule than be forced into it. I'd considered this prior to the v9 upgrade, but now there's no question—Retrospect 9 will be the last version of this software that we'll be running here. We'll continue to run v9 for as long as our client machines are supported, but once a new OS comes out and is unsupported by v9, we'll be migrating the entire backup system to a new title (and will demote the v9 server in line with the v6 and v4 servers to just sit and wait for the odd time we need to pull something from the ancient archives).

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