Thoughts on Battery Pack and paying for the 'Pro' version

[Andy Whiteford]

There is a lot of discontent at the charging of original customers for the latest release of Battery Pack even though they promised that you would receive free lifetime upgrades.

What are your thoughts?


http://www.wormholecreations.com.au/wc/megabbs/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=1818&posts=12

[buckyg]

It seems very misleading to me. I do see that on Handango, you can still purchase a 5.x version and receive free upgrades. That has a different name, something like Battery Pack 2004. (Let me guess, no more upgrades to that version.) Now the Pro version, that's a pay-for upgrade. If I have the details incorrect, let me know.

So maybe technically or legally this distinction may make the change okay, but as a former Omega One customer, I do not like it! Notice I said "former". I thought that they were more respectable than this. I feel lied to.

I understand why a company/developer would want to do this, from a business standpoint. (More development costs for the upgrade but with no more money from existing customers) However, I do not agree that it is right.

All of this is IMHO...

[Deltrevan]

Once again a developer's greed screws over the little guys that make up their customer base...and they wonder why people steal from them.

[Jolt]

FYI...I bought my copy of Battery Pack from Pocket Gear months ago and I was able to upgrade to Pro v6.0.0 for free :) It could be an error on their part that I was able to get the download??? :? But thanks for my copy! :mrgreen: ...the way it was meant to be FREE!

[arebelspy]

You'll find in five days when the trial runs out that it wants a registration code that costs $5.

To see other discussions on this, and Omega One's cut and pasted reply (which I'm sure will be here soon):

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103873&perpage=15

http://www.tekguru.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2560

-arebelspy

[darrylb]

I can sort of understand, but again, the fact that they will continue to upgrade Battery Pack is not made clear.

I guess if the focus of their development will go into the Pro edition, what updates can we expect to see for the standard version?

I believe that to make promises to customers regarding future upgrades is unwise. You are better to set no expectation than an unsustainable expectation.

Personally I switched to Pocket Plus a year ago and have found my devices are more stable as a result.

[Zack Mahdavi]

I also understand that they need to do this to keep BatteryPack alive... I'm not going to get mad just yet.. let's wait and see if they actually do keep BatteryPack updated and not just with bug fixes. If they only focus their attention on the Pro product, then I'll get annoyed.

It's too bad OmegaOne is trying to milk their customers like this. I for one have purchased Journal Bar, Battery Bar, and 1-Calc! I hope they'll continue to develop quality software.

[iant54]

And I've got Battery Pack, Journal Bar and 1-Pass, with a trial of 1-Calc running (though I also have Conversions in Hand, and CoolCalc loaded).

As a fall back to Battery Pack, however, I do have Sprite's PocketMon.

[CorwinB]

You'll find in five days when the trial runs out that it wants a registration code that costs $5.

To see other discussions on this, and Omega One's cut and pasted reply (which I'm sure will be here soon):

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103873&perpage=15

http://www.tekguru.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2560

-arebelspy

01's cut/paste reply probably won't be here, because I did not mail PocketPC Thoughts' URL to them in my complaint email. They only replied in the threads I linked them to (BH, AximSite, TekGuru, and their own forum), since it seems they don't really give a rat's backside about their customers and are only engaged in damage control at the moment, instead of looking at a genuine solution...

As an alternative, you may want to consider Today Task Master (freeware) :
http://www.pocketpctools.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=66