How limited is the no cost version of FDS going to be?

[nphelps]

So I've heard Data Services will have a
limited version available at no cost. What I'm trying to
assess is
how limited is that version planed to be. What wil the max
connection limit be? In short, I'd love to use Data Services for a
project, but only if the no cost version will work for me. Has
Adobe made any indications on this?

[busitech]

We would also like this information decided and disclosed by
Adobe as soon as possible.



New projects are happening all the time which could benefit
from the next version of Flex if the coresponding budgets allowed.
We are in the planning stages of several such projects, and would
not like to hold them in limbo indefinately...



We hope that the pricing is scalable enough to reach the
entire gammut of users - so that not only the elite businesses can
afford the server side technology. A given price per user or small
block of users would be great, which would be in effect above the
"mystery threshold" for the no-charge users.

[Adobe_Phil]

Hi,



We don't plan to announce the final packaging and pricing
until we release the product. I know you'd like to have more
detailed information than that, but that's all we're sharing at the
moment.



I can say that our goal is to make the pricing for both FDS
and Flex SDK scale from free on upwards in a way that matches the
business value of the applications that you're deploying. In other
words, the free version of FDS will not be so limited that you
can't use it for a real production application; on the other hand,
deploying large-scale, highly reliable applications is not going to
be free.



Phil Costa

Group Product Manager, Flex

[busitech]

We really appreciate your reply. Your goal sounds very close
to what we have in mind.



We operate in the SMB market. There are many levels of
profitability and lack thereof which our customers cycle through as
they grow their businesses. It takes several iterations of this
before they become well established. We assist these customers
through this process, because we believe technology plays an
important role and frequently defines the likelyhood of a positive
outcome.



We'd like to thank you for the changes being implemented If
Adobe acheives the stated goal, we will be even more effective in
achieving ours! Best regards.