Hi Nick,
A better example IMHO would be IBM and OS/2. I think they are still putting out fixes for Warp 4 and for a long time did for Warp 3. The thing is you could stay with the old version and get the low or even free updates or you could buy the upgrade version. The upgrade version was less then the full package but likely twice what SuSE charges.
True, but I bet it was half or less than the full price of the package. If the upgrade costs nearly the same as the full version, why buy the upgrade ever?
Stores don't like to compete with suppliers. Companies like SuSE will always have to charge more. It for no other reason so the stores can claim they are offering the product at a discount. Piss off your retailers and soon enough you don't have any. Soon enough those customers that buy retail go else where. So unless SuSE is willing to compete with it's on retailers long term then this idea won't fly.
Right. SuSE should continue to charge $79 for SuSE Pro at their site. What I am suggesting is that only the upgrade version (not available through retail) should be priced near or below the wholesale of the Professional version. Since retailers don't offer the upgrade version, SuSE would not be competing with retailers, at least in a manor of speaking. If they can't do this, I like others have said, would love to see a subscription version, or some other way to get an updated version of SuSE without buying all those books that I really like but don't need (and at the same time not paying the same for the edition without the books).
3.) SuSE should provide at least a one or two CD version as a downloadable ISO version. Just like every other major distribution company.
I guess this answers my question about Mandrake. If you are willing to download a two disk version why don't you just do a FTP upgrade from one of the mirrors? I doubt you'll end up downloading more.
Well, IMO, ISO's are a lot more convenient in that they install normally on a blank hard disk if needed, FTP upgrades aren't nearly as easy to use. And, if you use the auto-update fuction of YaST, then you would have to redownload the entire system should you reinstall. BTW, Mandrake offers the two disk version as you mention, and RedHat offers the equivilent of the basic RedHat workstation version.
Finally no one is forcing you to upgrade. Everything on a SuSE can be hand upgrade by the user. Much of it gets upgraded by RPMs on the FTP site.
Very true. As I have noted though, I'm not complaining about the SuSE Pro package cost, it just seems really crazy to me that I would end up paying the same for the upgrade from SuSE as I would for the whole Pro package from CompUSA or BestBuy. -Tim -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ #12495932 AIM: Uninettm Free/Open Source Web Tools: http://www.uninetsolutions.com Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com ============== "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============