MacHeist, the scheme that bundles a large number of quality Macintosh applications for a low price, has courted controversy in the past. Questions have been raised in the past among the Mac community about whether it offers good value to either end users or participating developers.
On a recent interview on the TWiT network podcast Macbreak Weekly the organisers of MacHeist stated that they were confident that this year’s heist all of the applications sold were the full versions, with the same terms as those sold direct by the developers.
Consequently, some MacHeist II customers were surprised and angered when Yazsoft, developer of Speed Download and participant in the most recent bundle, released a new version 5 of the software, and they found that their license keys were not valid for the upgrade – despite an initial statement from Yazsoft that purchases made between January 1st and February 12th 2008 were eligible for the upgrade at no cost. This upgrade was issued only three weeks after the end of the MacHeist II promotion.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a considerable (and sometimes ill-tempered and heated) debate about this on the MacHeist forums, and the MacHeist organisers have reiterated that they would have expected this upgrade to be as free for MacHeist users as it is for direct Yazsoft customers.
I contacted Yazsoft and had a conversation with Mark Forrester about the issue. Their position is that Speed Download 5 is a paid for upgrade, and that the timing of its development and release was independent of the MacHeist promotion. They believe that they were clear to MacHeist that the promoted version to sold in the bundle was version 4 only, and that they will continue to support that version with free updates to all users. They also believe that MacHeist should have been clearer on the version and update policy offered with the bundle.
The MacHeist organisers strongly disagree with this interpretation. A quick scan of the MacHeist forums has postings from MacHeist director John Casasanta that implies that they believe their contract has been breached, and promising further action. I now understand that dialogue between Yazsoft and MacHeist has broken down.
Yazsoft has made a special upgrade rate of $15 available to MacHeist customers, and in a further statement on the issue on their website (http://www.yazsoft.com/content/mh.html) they have extended this to provide two licenses for each upgrading MacHeist customer.
My personal view as a MacHeist customer is this:
1) Both Yazsoft and MacHeist appear to have made some assumptions about the terms of their deal, and have not effectively verified the wordings used in the promotion
2) Yazsoft has been somewhat naive in not anticipating this reaction with the timing of their Speed Download 5 release so soon after the MacHeist completion, and
3) Yazsoft has shown some grace to their MacHeist customers by making a gesture of the additional license
4) I like Speed Download, and I will continue to use the version 4 I got through MacHeist. Given that I only paid $3.50 for Speed Download 4 under MacHeist, if I pay the $15 upgrade fee to version I will still have paid less for it than if I had bought direct from Yazsoft (1 license direct from them is $25) – so that is still a great deal. The 2 for 1 license offer only improves that position
However, I think the takeaway lesson that everyone should get from this is that software costs real money. A bundle deal participation is a promotion, and whatever promises are made by the promoter the developer is ultimately responsible for providing the ongoing support. THAT is what a license fee pays for, and if you pay bottom dollar then developers will look to recoup that further down the line. However, it is VERY important that the developers ensure that any promotional material is honest and accurate – because paying customers are paying customers, whatever the price or marketplace.
Unfortunately, the war of words and opinion that this issue is likely to raise over the next few days in unlikely to benefit anyone in the Mac community.
What do you think? Email me at davidcohen@mymac.com, or leave a comment on our voicemail line.
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