Commercial license for $40/month??

[biggen]

Saw this post over on Reddit:



His maintenance pricing grid layout is confusing if that is not what he intends. As I read it, you need a commercial license to allow "commercial use".

 

[TonyR]

Saw this post over on Reddit:



His maintenance pricing grid layout is confusing if that is not what he intends. As I read it, you need a commercial license to allow "commercial use".

That's what I read also.

That said, if I was a business and I was paying $480 a year for a "commercial license" I would expect a response to my Blue Iris problem a lot quicker than is supplied currently by the 2 person team we've been told to be patient with all these years......IOW there should be several people to handle issues VIA PHONE and be dedicated ONLY to people with a commercial license. If that's not the case, I'd say it's a piss-poor value and not worth it.

Just my 2 cents about $480.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Reality check... Last year 24 cams cost just shy of $800 for annual support renewal. If we did not renew, the system would continue to work.

Exacq, owned by tyco since 2013, owned by johnson controls (JCI) since 2016.

In my experience, their tech support response is horrible. I am grateful that I do not need to call them too often

edit: "... their tech support..." was a reference to Exacqs tech support, not Blue Iris

 

[biggen]

Reality check... Last year 24 cams cost just shy of $800 for annual support renewal. If we did not renew, the system would continue to work.

Exacq, owned by tyco since 2013, owned by johnson controls (JCI) since 2016.

In my experience, their tech support response is horrible. I am grateful that I do not need to call them too often

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that BI is a deal at $480/year compared to $800/year?

I pay $34.95/year for BI at my retail business. I'll be damned if I am going to fork over ~13x that now.

 

[bp2008]

It doesn't really matter if Blue Iris is still cheaper than other VMS software. People are getting flustered over this because it is not what they signed up for when they invested their time learning and deploying Blue Iris for their businesses.




The intuitive interpretation of the new commercial license is that all users running Blue Iris at or for a place of business are supposed to pay 12-14 times as much as before to maintain a support plan and install Blue Iris updates.

I could not actually find any formal licensing terms, so it is unclear if a business is allowed to cancel the $40/mo plan and use their current BI version indefinitely as before.

It is unclear if businesses are expected to still buy the initial license for $80, or what happens regarding the included 1 year of basic support if they do.

The reddit thread has this comment which really just adds more confusion to the issue:

Hello xxx,

The commercial license is for customers who will be sharing their videos with other parties. If your video will be kept in house, commercial is not required.

Jennifer

Blue Iris Customer Support Specialist

I have a feeling a lot of business users are going to realize they are actually home users after all.

Most NVR appliances (e.g. Dahua or Hikvision) have never charged a recurring fee. UniFi NVR (from Ubiquiti) is also starting to look more attractive especially since they have limited support for ONVIF now.

 

[TonyR]

I have a feeling a lot of business users are going to realize they are actually home users after all.

Ditto.

 

[Ssayer]

I'm a customer. If I put videos up here, I'm sharing it with other parties, right?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that BI is a deal at $480/year compared to $800/year?

I pay $34.95/year for BI at my retail business. I'll be damned if I am going to fork over ~13x that now.

It was authored as a neutral live example of what an other manufacturer charges for support.