Hi Neil
Are Flashpipe users going to have to upgrade to the Studio Ultimate to receive any future upgrades
FlashPipe is still shown on the web site as a stand-alone program so I'm pretty sure the answer is no and " Flashpipe still be good for upgrades for one year".
like I will be required to do with Qimage Studio?
That does not sound right.
Mike has made it clear that Studio owners will continue to get updates, see his MIni FAQ's:
http://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/qimage-ultimate-mini-faq/ which say
We want to continue to reward existing Lite/Pro/Studio users with essential updates to keep those products working smoothly with all the latest technology. As we work on a fast track to bring all the latest innovations to Qimage Ultimate however, the older Lite, Pro, and Studio editions will not be updated as frequently nor will they see new features like Qimage Ultimate. That said, we will continue to update Lite, Pro, and Studio several times a year to add new cameras for raw support, fix bugs, and update existing features to ensure they are compatible with current technology. This means providing updates to things like file formats that might change or become incompatible with some other brand of software, problems that might be caused by changed to anti-virus software, video drivers, additional requirements of new printer models/drivers, and so on.
Hope that helps.
Terry