Anyone heard anything about this? Know what the upgrade fee is?
Seems like yesterday we were upgrading to version 3. Must've been a "lemon" release.
Looks like they fixed some bugs that I've been waiting on in v3.
Well, looks like they're going to do a new release every year. Jury's still out?
Interesting. I just bought 3.00 about two months ago. I'll have to see if there is a "grace period" to upgrade ...
My guess is the arrival of all of those new GNSS manufacturers on the market were the drive for jumping to v4. Either that or as you say, v3 is a lemon. Which could be true when reading the list of improvements and bugs fix. The release notes PDF is a 32 page document.
The upgrade from 2.x to 3.0 was $150 and I'm being told by my dealer that Carlson has started offering an annual maintenance plan on SurvCE that also runs $150 and should include the update to version 4. I have an email into her for details on how to get on the maintenance plan.
Yep, it was less than a year ago that v3 came out. We can look forward to a version every year, whether we need it or not. Versions 1 and 2 both lasted many years. I'm not real happy about this. I may have more to say later, but I'm gonna hold my tongue, er, fingers, for now.
All software companies are moving to the maintenance/subscription business model. At least with the maintenance model we have the choice to stay up to date or stick with what we've got. With many of the subscription models I've seen, you're essentially renting your software and if you don't pay the rent your software goes on strike.
> All software companies are moving to the maintenance/subscription business model. At least with the maintenance model we have the choice to stay up to date or stick with what we've got. With many of the subscription models I've seen, you're essentially renting your software and if you don't pay the rent your software goes on strike.
Under this mentioned business model, the user is allowed to transfer a software license on another computer. Will the same be offered here?
SO far, Carlson has been good about allowing users to transfer licenses to newer hardware (one of the big reasons to favor Carlson over Survey Pro).
But, this is a step in the wrong direction, from a user stand point. I'd guess they are headed towards to the obnoxious Autodesk model of renting software. I wonder if after a couple of yearly updates, they will force you to update to keep your license active ... that is to say, they won't let you wait several years then jump from V3 to V7, or whatever. I hope I'm wrong.
What really bothers me is that as I read the V4 notes, it looks like it's about 90% bug fixes from V3 .... As I said before, I just bought V3 a month and a half ago, and I assumed based on Carlson's history that they'd be "user friendly" and release several free update/bug fix versions before they forced an upgrade. I guess I was wrong.
Carlson Software typically comes with 90 days of maintenance included so you may be in luck.
They shouldn't charge you for the upgrade, being that recent. I don't think they have thought this out very well, nobody knows for sure how much the upgrade fee is.
What really gripes me is not the subscription based fees, although I don't think that will be well received by the surveying community, is what you stated: Most of version 4 is version 3 fixes. And, a lot of these worked fine in version 2. I remember being frustrated, wondering why something that worked fine now somehow didn't? However, I guess if you're going to "upgrade" every year, something has to be broke to fix.
I turned in the problem with the two point gps shot right after I got v3, and it wasn't fixed for 3 releases, and it worked fine in versions 1 and 2. Now I've got to pay for it to be fixed in an upgrade that I paid for less than a year ago. There are other things, too, but I'm stopping there.
btw, I've been watching the site for a fix on said problems, which is how I discovered version 4.
I'm withholding judgment. Carlson has always had good customer service and support. I will say the one thing I hold against them is the way bugs are fixed in new versions. Often times last year's bugs are fixed but include an entirely new set of bugs for this year for next year's version to fix. I think it's entirely appropriate to pay for new features. I think it sucks paying for something to work that I've already purchased.
Do you have a link to the 4.0 features?
Just hit the downloads page at www.carlsonsw.com and goto SurvCE. I think 4.0 is selected by default and the manuals, release notes, etc are available for downloading.
There are so many manufacturers out there and they want to support them all, so that's a bit of a problem. Imagine having 12 guests in your home and cooking 12 variations of a meal to keep them all happy. Another issue the company will have to address in the upcoming years is its name SurvCE. Windows CE is old technology.
At least some things don't change as we go through the upgrades. I am still reminded of the 80's arcade game Asteroids every time I look at my rover icon on the map...