I hear him.

From past experience I know that once this happens to a product as has been done with Qimage, upgrades/updates become less and less. The program is basically static except for maybe some new support for a new camera or bug fix. Even with best of intentions now, this is what will happen to Qimage Legacy. But I am ok with that, I don't argue the point. I have stated I am fine with paying a fair upgrade fee and the annual support.

I am angry with the way he went about releasing Ultimate and I am very uncomfortable with his attitude and disregard towards his user base. I will go out of my way to patronize a local business which provides great service even at a higher price than the big box store or online merchant. But I won't patronize a business who treats me like crap even if their product or service is superior.

All I am saying is to be fair to your user base and spread good will, offer previous buyers an upgrade discount to Ultimate just as you have done in the past. Instead all I hear back is that everyone is a freeloader, Ultimate is completely new, blah, blah, blah. I am not going to give any more money to someone who thinks so little of me.

Even though the $90 cost is a small fraction of what is spent on the hobby or profession, that is not the point.

The fact is that Qimage Lite/Pro/Studio were promised lifetime free upgrades. That is not the case anymore. What they will get are updates, updates for new raw image formats, updates for bug fixes, etc. There will be no more new functionality as that is now part of Ultimate.

The fact is that free lifetime upgrades only works as long as you continue to sell new copies. It is like a pyramid though and eventually you run out of new customers and cash flow.

The fact is we have been getting annual upgrades for years for free but now the cash has run out and this year instead of Qimage 2011, Qimage Ultimate is released and it is touted as a brand new product, hence no free upgrade.

The fact is Qimage is the best printing program out there and all those who have enjoyed the free upgrades year after year realize the work that went into it and have no problem upgrading to the new program and subscription model.

But, the fact is that Mike decided to snub his user base and not offer an upgrade to the new version and make everyone pay as a first time customer. This disrespect is what has angered people. If Adobe said Photoshop CS6 will be a total rewrite and as such there will be no upgrades, people would be up in arms. The fact that the $90 is only a small portion of my annual cost doesn't make it right or reasonable. Come the end of the day, Qimage Ultimate is an upgrade, maybe a major upgrade at that, but an upgrade just the same.  Mike is bitter because HIS business model is no longer working and instead of being gracious and humble, has taken a hardline, hardnose, approach. How many would upgrade at a reasonable cost and pay the annual fee? Probably lots. I had high regards for Qimage and Mike. I still have high regards for the product and all the work that was done. But, it has been made obvious what Mike thinks of his user base and I don't condone or respect that at all.
 

Mike,
 
Nobody denies the quality of your product. Nobody denies you need to derive income in order to keep inovating. I think everybody agrees they got a bargain with Qimage. And, I think everybody has no problem moving to a yearly fee model. Nobody says you should never make any money on anything new you do for the rest of your life either.

But calling it Qimage implies upgrade not new. Adobe called it Lightroom not Photoshop Ultimate. DDISoftware is the brand, like Adobe, Qimage is the model, like Photoshop. Maybe you should have played off the "Q" and called it Qultimate.  In any case, I think most users are angry that they did not receive the courtesy of an upgrade to the new product. If people upgrade, they will now be paying you $20 a year for life whereas before it was $0 a year. I think if you had offered your users an upgrade path you would have a lot more people switching. It would have been really nice if you had said I have developed a new application Qwhatever. These are the benefits, this is what I plan on doing with it. Unlike Qimage, in order to keep it on the cutting edge, this product will have a $20/year subscription. I thank you all for purchasing Qimage in the past and for a limited time to entice all of you to upgrade, I am offering a xx% discount off the regular price of $90.

You would have made back the initial discount with years and years of subscription renewals. Instead ........

I have been using Qimage for years, first Pro then Studio. I always wondered how Mike could make any money offering free upgrades year after year especially once his product saturated the market. As as happened with other developers, they find they can no longer provide free upgrades with the amount of new sales coming in. The only solution is to come out with a new product that no longer gets free lifetime upgrades.

I applaud Mike for holding out as long as he did. The fact is though that he was the one who sold the product with free lifetime upgrades. He can't do it any longer so the product has to die. I know there are promises of bug fixes and such but the fact of the matter is that there are no more free upgrades. Over time, even the fixes will become less and less.

Here comes the "new" product Qimage Ultimate. Actually it is not new, it is an upgrade. It may have a ton of new code but it is built from Qimage. Mike may argue it is a totally new product but it is still called Qimage and it is not 100 percent new code.  I understand a lot of work went into it, I understand the economics of it all. It is an upgrade not a new product!

The decent thing to do would have been to offer current users an upgrade path to Qimage Ultimate. I bought Pro, I bought Studio, I would have paid an annual upgrade fee if it had been part of the package. Now Ultimate comes out, another upgrade, I agree to the annual fee, I want to upgrade, but I am told this is totally new and I must purchase the product at full price plus pay the annual fee. Not nice, not classy, not a good way to do business or win customers.

Mike, I am sorry you are bitter that your free upgrades for life policy didn't work forever. It's not my fault though, you made the policy. Qimage is so good that I want to support you and your work. I am more than willing to pay to upgrade to Ultimate, I am more than willing to pay an annual fee, but I will not purchase your upgrade at full price.

Five years from now whether I am still using Qimage or not I will not have paid DDI any money at all. If a reasonable upgrade path would have been offered, I would have paid DDI $80 plus the upgrade fee in those 5 years. Multiply that by the number of users who won't upgrade not because they don't feel Mike deserves the money but because they were given no consideration in being able to upgrade. Its very sad.