How does your pricing/licensing system work?
How does your pricing/licensing system work?
Details can be found here: www.empirisoft.com/order.aspx. The gist is that it costs $475 for the first computer and $150 for each after that. These licenses are permanent so you do not have to pay again in susbsequent years. However, like other software we release new versions every couple years with lots of new features which you can get for a discounted upgrade fee (approx 50%) if you're already a licensed user. You are in no way obligated to do this though and if you choose you can just use the version you have as long as you like. Typical upgrade fees are also listed on the pricing web page.
We have also started doing departmental site licenses. It offers unlimited use of the software for everyone in your area. It's easier for us and our customers at large universities because we can offer IP-based authorization with it. Your department's IP pattern (e.g., 123.123.123.*) can be hard coded directly into the software--consequently, no special codes are required and anyone in your department can just download and use the software on any machine connected to your network.
We also have small group site licenses available for smaller areas (e.g., 25 computers or less).
[edited from support email]
I don't understand the IP address option. Does this work for faculty and student laptops and computers used at their homes?
If you can swing it, the departmental site license is handy because you get unlimited use for staff, faculty and students so long as the computers are owned/maintained by your department. To make this convenient for you, we can add your department's IP patterns to the software so anyone can simply download and run the software automatically without codes. Your IT folks will typically like this feature because it makes installing via imaging or ghosting etc., really easy. IPs are the unique internet addresses assigned to your department by the university. They automatically identify a system as being connected to your department's network so we don't need any other authorization codes to be involved. Note that we can only use IPs that assigned to your university and are unique. Generic IPs assigned by a router such as 192.168.1.* can not be used as that would allow pretty much anyone to use the software.
