v3 as a low cost upgrade

[lonnie]

v3 will not be a free update, but rather a low cost upgrade. We hope to fix the online system to handle upgrades by entering your MAC and obtaining a new license with the cost being the new price minus the current license price of the old license.

The purpose of this thread is to get feedback for what that price should be. Please give feedback via the attached poll.

[nelson05]

I'd also like to cast a vote for the return of some type of tiered pricing (similar to the now defunct Atheros license), if only for the chance that the cloaking feature developed for StarVx could make an appearance in StarOS V3. I would be willing to pay an extra licensing fee above the base StarOS V3 upgrade license to enable this feature.

I understand there are a number of legal/business issues, but I wonder if releasing a stripped down version where cloaking is only available when the wireless radio is in client mode, might make this a possibility? This arrangement would enable the many customers who have invested a great deal in StarOS on a variety of platforms (especially the WRAP, which Valemount themselves sold and promoted heavily, and still do for a one port, low cost CPE since an equivalent WAR is 3-4 months out) to take advantage of this extremely valuable feature without cannibalizing WAR sales which will still be the platform of choice for APs, Backhauls, Mesh, and future CPEs (once the one port version is released).

I see that a competitor is close to releasing a test package of their version of cloaking that will run on all versions of their OS, though an additional fee may be required. I'd hate to see Valemount get outflanked when they are the innovators, but it is difficult to justify replacing all existing CPE installs with WARs @ $200 (or whatever the one port version ends up costing) when a person could license a different OS @ $65 and be able to suddenly expand coverage density exponentially using the same hardware.

Again, I'd rather have this or a similar option available using StarOS. I love the stability, performance, and support of StarOS and also believe in the new StarVx platform. Supporting the cloaking option in V3 will likely drive our adoption of WARs and StarVX for APs and as soon as a one port version is released that has comparable functionality to StarOS (we're getting close with the addition of a DHCP server though we still need a DHCP client and NAT), we'll start moving our CPE purchases to this new platform. However, increasing competition for spectrum coupled with our large (and very recent) investments in the WRAP/StarOS platform as a CPE are pretty significant issues we hope will have happy resolutions.

[phendry]

I guess the upgrade price would depend on the new feature set. As your sticking with Linux does it mean the upgrade may be able to be done remotely and not having to climb?

[lonnie]

Please read the other thread I started in the v3 Forum.

[Skaught]

I think it should not be lower price at all. You guys work too hard to work for nothing or cheap.

[therealboss]

I think that if you only buy 1 upgrade at a time $30 is a air price but if you buy 10 or more upgrades at the same time then it should be $10 or $15 per box.


You can't afford to do it for free as we need you to be able to keep up your good work and keep developing the software.


We are all fighting in a very aggressive market and we too are running a business, and need to keep our prices competitive, this means keeping our overheads as low as possible.

IMOHO (for what its worth) $10 or $15 per box is a fair price for 10 or more boxes and I’m sure that most of us can afford that.

[luka]

I agree with nelson05 regarding channel cloaking.

I think that upgrade price should be determined depending of new features and support provided, which is not yet defined clearly. Some 10-15$ sounds ok for me.

[RomaWireless]

Easy to predict the poll will have a majority for an upgrade price of $10.
Is that Ok with you Lonnie? :)

[ninedd]

FWIW, I've thought for a long time that the price of Star AP Version should be $50, not $40, and that there should be a $10 upgrade any time there is a version upgrade. As a side note: I've also STRONGLY though we should be able to swap or upgrade or transfer licenses from MAC to MAC for $10 as well. I just bought 7 DELL's and 7 Licenses to find out that the 3Com cards built in are junk. My personal pet-peve, but 3Com's are listed on the StarOS site as supported cards, but that basically cost me $700 in dud machines and $280 in dud licenses. IMHO, I think whatever upgrade you're thinking of, should also be considered as a fee for license transfers.

Of course, none of us know how many StarOS AP's are out there, but I think we all want it to be worth it for you to do devlopment as fast as you can. The moment V3 comes out, there should be a built in signifigant incentive for you to start work on V4 the very next day, hire people, subcontract programmers, whatever it takes. Free support w/ Free upgrades forever certainly don't equal a ''signifigant incentive.'' :) I think EVERYONE would stongly favour more features, more rapidly and would be more than willing to pay the cost. Just guessing how many AP licenses there are in the world, I'd think that $10 would probably equal that ''signifigant incentive'', but frankly, you'll have to do that math. $10 per AP, $5 per CPE would be fine with me. Even $20 per AP, and $10 per CPE would also be fine. Frankly, I'd be willing to license at $40 per AP per year, IF that meant there would be a new version every year. Like nelson05, I'd gladly pay to have the cloaking features in the WRAP version as well.

It is not the cost of Star that will make or break our businesses, it's how quickly we can be deployed before the competition is. Once a person sign up with the competition, they are not a target customer anymore. If we can get to them first, with longer range, lower costs, more robust solutions, then we likely have them forever as well.

[Skaught]

Inet2000, you are a genius. You are 100% correct in my view.

[cwilli]

I understand the V3 will not be a free upgrade. But does that apply to everyone who bought a war board with StarVX?

I believe that people who bought a war board with StarVX should be offered a free upgrade.

Chris Williams

[lonnie]

We provide the OS with the WAR board and it will always be a free upgrade. It is our way of saying thanks.

[dikobraz]

On this page http://www.star-os.com/specs.php#router is free upgrade. On this page is dont write ver.2. or v.3.

[titan_wireless]

On this page http://www.star-os.com/specs.php#router is free upgrade. On this page is dont write ver.2. or v.3.


Its says FREE UPDATES, not upgrades.

Updates are fixes within the same version. From 2.0 to 2.1, 2.1-b4567 or anything like that is an update. They have been free and quick as bugs are found.

Going from V2 to V3 is an upgrade, and not free.

[dikobraz]

My english is poor. For me is updates or upgrades to some. How many time suport update v.2???? In v.2 will be new function?

[MrSmith]

Please tell me that upgrade pricing won't be exclusively tied to "MACs listed in license-keys.com". Most of our StarOS gear is purchased with the OS pre-installed, so the license (and MAC) isn't in our account, but rather that of the folks we buy it from.

They, of course, got the license keys from you, so hopefully there will either be a way to transfer the keys from their account to ours at the same time, or at the very least a way for you to look up that the MAC does in fact exist in your system, even if it doesn't have my name attached to it.

[luka]

Similar case here as my country is not paypal friend but I suppose this will not be problem, why anyways licence must be listed at l-c account? If it has been paid then it doesnt matter.

Another thing, regarding payments: western union is very expensive, wire transfer too, paypal is not everywhere supported - are you planning to add some credit-card or other acceptable payment form? I must buy licences from different sources and having this dispersive thing in mind I will never qualify for some discount etc.

[lonnie]

We will do a lookup and make sure the MAC has a valid license somewhere in the system. Your account would be charged the upgrade fee, and the license would be included in your account.

Please tell me that upgrade pricing won't be exclusively tied to "MACs listed in license-keys.com". Most of our StarOS gear is purchased with the OS pre-installed, so the license (and MAC) isn't in our account, but rather that of the folks we buy it from.

They, of course, got the license keys from you, so hopefully there will either be a way to transfer the keys from their account to ours at the same time, or at the very least a way for you to look up that the MAC does in fact exist in your system, even if it doesn't have my name attached to it.