As we released the final build of the Build Automator last week we posted that we had combined the Standard and Developer Editions before the final release. We feel that this may need some more detailed explanation.
The released Build Automator includes everything that the Developer Edition was designed to have. That includes the ability to create and use your own plugins. But instead of having the Developer Edition including everything we can ever come up with, it will include basic set of actions. Specialized actions that are not of general use will be provided in separate plugins that we will make available for sale. The price for those plugins will vary depending on development time and other factors, but we see the prices range from perhaps $20 to $100 - could be more, could be less.
Lets look at an example: For Clarion developers there are already two actions in there to compile Clarion applications. One is for a single application only, the other one is for multiple applications. This is an example of a basic functionality that would be found in the standard action set for the Build Automator. Originally we had posted plans to add actions to register templates, run utility templates etc. and this was to be part of the Developer Edition. Now rather than having to purchase the Developer Edition you can buy the Build Automator and then buy the Clarion plugin.
If you don't need the Clarion plugin, you still have the ability to compile your applications in the Build Automator. We will provide a plugin that can export applications and dictionaries, execute utility templates, etc. etc. that are all very Clarion specific. Programmers using other languages will not find much use for the Clarion plugin. Clarion programmers on the other hand might find such a plugin very useful.
We don't feel that this diminishes the value of the Build Automator in any way - quite the contrary. Now you can buy the software which will provide you with the basic functionality but if you need some other specialized actions, you could develop them yourself or possibly purchase them from us or other BA third party developers.
The reason why we made this change before the final release was simply that we didn't feel it was right to stuff everything into the Developer Edition. The reason why we developer the Build Automator so that it could be extended with external plugins was flexibility. I did not see that we gave much flexibility with just two different editions of the software. I see this benefitting both us and our customers as being both more flexible and more attractive financailly for both parties as well as our customers will only be paying for what they need rather than paying for what they need and then all kinds of specialized stuff that they may not need.
If you have any questions about this, please don't hesitate to contact us
-- Arnor Baldvinsson
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