Why no 4SC permanent Pro license any more?

[nobody]

I simply dont understand why 3CX does not offer a permanent Pro License with 4SC calls. I can imagine, that 3CX will get more income by offering only a yearly license, (accumulates to about 2 to 4 times the price of the previously 4SC Pro permanent license), but besides of this, I see no explanation which makes sense. Basically the small customers now are subsidizing the big ones Licenses.
Want more faeatures/calls pay more, this is ok for me, but why should the smaller guys pay for the big ones?

 

[cobaltit]

I'm not following how you think the small guys are paying for the big ones, but you already answered your own question about why. It's the money. If this makes 3CX too expensive for you then I guess you'll need to move on to that better/cheaper product. Not sure which one that is though....

 

[nobody]

Its a simple calculation:
4SC pro permanent License:
until 2019: about 470 for a license. Assume this will work for a Timeframe of 5Year. Total Sum 470
Now: 220/year makes 880 for the 5 Year Term wich is the double of the previous price, if you assume a ten year Term even 4 Times.

16SC pro permanent License:
until 2019: 1860
Now: 1570
Makes a difference of 300 reduction in price for the 16SC version.

Now, who is going to pay the difference?

 

[florink]

completely change their product (think of the move from Windows to Linux)

It blows my mind that you bring this up as something negative..

a) They didn't move from Windows to Linux, they just support multiple platforms. If people prefer linux that's another story.
b) It's the best thing ever happened to 3CX and its customers. The deployment options are now so many.

 

[NickD_3CX]

@nobody
There is not really much to add to what has already been said, but you are just taking things out of perspective.

To add though, nobody ever said that the Windows/Mac clients are going away completely. They may be more focused on the call functionality rather than the presence information, but I don't think anybody said that they are going away completely. For the extra presence information there is always the WebClient.

With the Exchange, we have introduced the new Office365 integration, yes, some older versions don't work, but have you ever consider that Microsoft just doesn't maintain APIs for them also?
As we evolve our software, so does everyone else.

Is there room for improvement? Of course there is, there is always something to fix or improve and new features to implement. That is software development - things change fast.

 

[nobody]

Regarding the switch from a Windows only Server to a cross platform system, I agree this has also positive aspects (the negative are for example that the multi tenant PBX is dead). Dropping support for functions or reducing features is my main complaint. When support for Exchange 2010 was dropped this was not made public. It took month until the official documents reflected this change. And it was not necessary because support for Exchange 2010 ist still working if you change 4 letters in a DLL. Take a look at Starface (addon) Exchange support: This still works down to Exchange 2007. The Starface system is better then 3CX regarding integration into Windows, they have a native UCC client for windows working very nicely, not a poor browser based cross platform solution, I can see the complete name of the caller on my phone and in the Windows Client, not only 5 letters. The Starface mobile phone addon and the Windows Phone, this is where 3CX excels, but I have doubts if 3CX will reach a level of Quality so this can really be used like a mobile phone. Not because only of the Software Quality, but also because the GSM network does not care for VoIP, so frequent call drops, moments of silence will still happen when you move with your mobile phone. Also VoiP calls simply do not work in locations with 2G reception. Most users when they realize this will stop using the 3CX client becuause its too much effort to think about what app to use to call, they just want to make a call, and the native mobile phone call will do this, nearly regardless of the location.

But back to my original question: why did 3CX decide to drop the 4SC and 8SC professional permanent licenses? Would it be such a big loss of money if this stayed like it was before?