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bchappell
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare unfair upgrade policy for Workstation 7

Is it just me or is anyone else feeling somewhat bitter about VMWare offering the same upgrade price to both v5 and v6 owners?

Did I miss something or did I not pay for the privilege of upgrading from v5 to v6? Why did I do that? Why didn't I just wait for v7 and save myself some money? Hang on, I was an avid user who wanted to keep up to date, who gave VMWare more revenue and reported bugs in their v6 product while continuing to use it. A v5 user didn't do those things, they sat back, saved themselves some cash and now get the same upgrade price that I do.

Thanks a bunch VMWare. May be we should all make a point and skip v7, after all we should fully expect to get the same upgrade deal to v8 as the v7 users when it eventually comes out.

I'm feeling like it's time for a change of virtualisation software, time to look for a company that actually rewards people who are active supporters of their product, who stay current and provide them with a revenue stream.

I'm certainly not going to be recommending VMWare to any future customers of mine at the moment.

Tags (3)
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18 Replies
Liz
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Everyones entitled to an opininon, however, its not uncommon for an "upgrade" price to be from any previous version, so I guess it doesnt rattle my cage like it does yours.

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Scissor
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I'm sorry that you feel cheated somehow.

When Workstation 6 came out, you chose to buy the upgrade to WS 6 because it gave you features that you wanted and you felt it was worth the price. Other people may have stuck with WS 5 because they had no need to upgrade at the time. But during the past year (or so) you have been getting utility out of those features you paid for.

Now that Workstation 7 is out, people have a similar choice to make. I personally feel that a $99 upgrade price is a total bargain for the best desktop virtualization software on the market, but your opinion may be different.

Other people are upset that they bought Workstation 6 two months ago and so are not eligable for the same free upgrade to Workstation 7 as those who purchased Workstation 6 a month ago. The timing may suck for them, but at the time they purchased Workstation 6 they felt it was worth the price they paid. VMware can't give retroactive free upgrades to everyone who purchased Workstation 6 and still remain in business (although a month does seem a little short to me, but I'm not VMware so I don't know the reasoning behind it)

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martyfelker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am not upset about the upgrade policy that VMware uses. However I am upset about the fact that VMware Workstation 7 includes a new version of VMwarePlayer that can create, as well as run virtual machines. I assume this is to match Virtualbox, which as a dfree progdram is improving constantly. So I pay big bucks for upgraDes so I can create VM's and then VMware gives that capability away? Please let me know if I'm mistaken here but the VMware WS 7 beta bundle had the new improved VMware Player included.

Not cool

Marty Felker

Marty Felker
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Joe1948
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Well you're free to use the free products and put up with their short comings. I quit using Virtual Box because the networking sucked. MS virtuual pc was a dog and didn't run 64 bit so I switched to VMware and don't regret it and will probably upgrade when I switch to Windows 7. Unfair is the Vista Ultimate that never had much of the promised extras, MS didn't make us any half price offers for the piece of crap.

Joe

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bchappell
Contributor
Contributor

@Scissor: I hear what you are saying but VMWare are giving a free upgrade, 5->6 as people aren't being asked to pay for that part of the upgrade... that's coming free, it must be free otherwise how can 5->7 upgrade be the same price as 6->7 upgrade.

@Joe: I run Workstation and Fusion, I switch several of my VMs between the platforms as my Mac is a laptop and my Win-machine a tower so it works well for me but I upgraded my Fusion to v3 before realising how much more expensive Workstation 7 was, now I will have Fusion 3 or WS 6.5 complaining about the tools being the wrong version unless I upgrade to WS 7. I'll probably do it but it may be my last upgrade for some time. I will be able to save myself some money and skip a version each time, to me that's not productive business practice and rewarding your repeat customers is more often beneficial.

I am impressed that all the responses seem to indicate that even in these harder economic times that so many people are happy to pay twice as much for something as some else.

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

Well, if you are using Fusion on one computer, then you can always just use the $FREE Player 3.0 on the other computer -- it will run your Fusion 3 VMs just fine; and it even now comes with the capability built in of creating new VMs too! If you aren't using any of the advanced features which Workstation provides, then save yourself the money and just use the free product. Smiley Happy

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Scissor
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I upgraded my Fusion to v3 before realising how much more expensive Workstation 7 was .... I am impressed that all the responses seem to indicate that even in these harder economic times that so many people are happy to pay twice as much for something as some else.

Yes Fusion pricing is different than Workstation pricing. Perhaps Mac users don't have as much disposable income after spending so much on Mac hardware? Just kidding... If I had to guess I would say that Fusion's pricing is lower because, 1) Virtulization software on the Mac is a recent development (within the past 2 or 3 years), unlike on Windows, so companies are trying to get market share, 2) there are several decent competitors on that platform such as Parallels., 3) Large companies purchase Workstation and are not as price conscious, while Mac users tend to be using them on their home computers.

Although I just saw that Parallels has an $80 version for Windows now. Interesting.

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bchappell
Contributor
Contributor

Yes Fusion pricing is different than Workstation pricing. Perhaps Mac users don't have as much disposable income after spending so much on Mac hardware? Just kidding... If I had to guess I would say that Fusion's pricing is lower because, 1) Virtulization software on the Mac is a recent development (within the past 2 or 3 years), unlike on Windows, so companies are trying to get market share, 2) there are several decent competitors on that platform such as Parallels., 3) Large companies purchase Workstation and are not as price conscious, while Mac users tend to be using them on their home computers.

Although I just saw that Parallels has an $80 version for Windows now. Interesting.

My comment about the double price isn't relating to Fusion, I understand that has fewer facilities and they are trying to grab market share. The path there has been great, I paid for v1, v2 was a freebie, v3 is another reasonable upgrade.

The comment was about having to pay $99 for WS 5 to WS6 and then $99 for WS6 to WS7, a total of $198 compared to WS 5 to WS7 for $99. I hear all the comments about me getting use out of WS 6 for the year or so I've had it but weren't the WS 5 users also getting use out of their version? I guess I just value my repeat customers a little more than VMWare do and I'm not going to change them. I am frankly surprised that so many people are happy with paying double, even an extra $20 (either way, it's not the price per se that I'm griping about) would be a differentiator that would show that VMWare value those of us who are coming along on their commercial journey. That said, I know when I'm beaten and one voice isn't going to change anything. I may upgrade my WS 6.5, I may not. I may find that this sours me too much to VMWare as company, what will it be next time? If I skip 7 and when 8 comes out they decide to charge extra for the 6.5 -> 8 upgrade over the 7 -> 8 upgrade, that would be just typical. Oh well, enough is enough and I've had enough of beating my head against this particular wall. Anyone wishing to skip the 7 upgrade and send me the $99 (just so you don't feel like you've missed out), I only take cash Smiley Happy

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bchappell
Contributor
Contributor

Well, if you are using Fusion on one computer, then you can always just use the $FREE Player 3.0 on the other computer -- it will run your Fusion 3 VMs just fine; and it even now comes with the capability built in of creating new VMs too! If you aren't using any of the advanced features which Workstation provides, then save yourself the money and just use the free product. Smiley Happy

I'm not saying that I don't use any of WS beyond the player, I'm saying that the upgrade policy is unfair to those of us who upgrade regularly. We provide VM with a steady income stream and we're the ones being asked to pay double what others are being asked to pay for the journey from WS 5 to WS 7. That's all. Anyway, as I'd said in my previous post, tired of this, tired of VMWare.

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Liz
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Like most companies VMware seem to work on a 1-2 year cycle, if you want the new features you pay up, if you dont feel you need them, you dont. If you're good with the one you have no one is making you upgrade, however, if you want the new features, then, the decisions almost made, and know in 1-2 years time a new version will be out, and chances are you'll like some of the new features of that too. Least they dont do the subscription idea so that after 12 months your versionn doesnt work even if you dont want the new one.

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martyfelker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm not holding my breath on a fair upgrade for paying customers. In

fact I was rather annoyed that I would not have gotten the upgrade price

to 6.5.x unless I previously had purchased 5.0. Look back on the

record. You could not get 6.5 upgrade from 6.0! I figure VMware's

policies have changed for the worse since they were acquired by EMC.

Marty Felker

Marty Felker
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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

You could not get 6.5 upgrade from 6.0!

That's because 6.5 was an UPDATE from 6.0.x, not an UPGRADE. Therefore, it was FREE. Any 6.x license works on ANY 6.x version (host-OS-specific, however). This is the same policy VMware has had in place for the entire life of the Workstation product. 4.5 was a free update from 4.0.x; 5.5 was a free update from 5.0.x; etc.

To bchappel: For those of us who paid to upgrade 5.x-->6.x, we had use of features/functionality which was not existant in 5.x for the 2.5 years since 6.0 was released. Some feel the price was worth it, others may not have. But we GOT extra features for that money. Other people didn't want to spend the money until now, and now get (once again) new features/functionality not existant in 5.x. Personally, I have purchased and kept up a Silver support contract for my copy of Workstation since the 5.x days... for $34/year I get unlimited web SRs and any/all upgrades to the product released during the support contract cycle. Just last month I renewed for 3 years, for less money than the price of one major version upgrade. So, essentially, I've already paid for any upgrades to 8.x, etc. which occur in the next 3 years. To me, that's money well worth spent.

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martyfelker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Another horror. Yes I could install the free VMware Player on Windows 7 but when I wanted to install my licensed version of WS 6.53 it fodrced an uninstall of Player like usual. No matter. I have a dual boot of Windows 7 with Windows 2008 Server R2 and I'll install Player on the latter. Adios VMware (I've been a customer since version 2.0. The first commercial outrage was the rants when VMware removed support from OS/2 - which was workinig in beta! Guess you get to enjoy the Fortune 500 crowd.

Marty Felker

Marty Felker
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P0a0u0l
Contributor
Contributor

Another way to make the upgrades fair is give 1 year of upgrades from the date of purchase. I bought 6.5 a few weeks before the cutoff date for free upgrades to release of 7 and expected to pay again? A 30-day free upgrade policy?? A lot of companies give you one year of upgrades regardless of the version number dance.

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kdshapiro
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Without condoning or approving the upgrade policy, It seems a lot of companies do the same thing. The Windows 7 upgrade is one that specifically comes to mind with the same upgrade price being paid for XP and Vista.

I can understand why one may be upset if they missed the cutoff date by one day or one week. However, at $99 this software provides more flexibility in constructing an operating environment for the computer user better than other software available, free or paid. In addition, I understand that with some licensing restrictions the same key will also allow the Linux version of WS7 to be used provided unparalled flexibility.

I've been using this product for a number of years, and I bought all of the upgrades since V4. The upgrades are cheap at the price.

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martyfelker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can somebody from VMware confirm/deny thta somebody like me who has a licenses for WS 6.5 for Window and Linux can now upgrade BOTH licenses for the upgrade price of $99 (less 25% for beta atesting - an issue VMware has not responded to me about by sending a coupon)?

If this is the cased I'd consider an upgraded to WS 7. In general VMware has more functionalioty at this time than VirtualBox, KVM/Qemu, Hyper-V etc.

Thank you.

Marty FelklerMarty Felker

Marty Felker
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kdshapiro
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws7/doc/releasenotes_ws7.html

Read the release notes. Scroll down a bit and the release notes talk about cross-platform license keys. I haven't tried it, because I don't run Linux as a host operating system.

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thro
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I guess it comes down to this: Do you need Windows 7 accelerated 3d support? if so, the upgrade price is worth it, easily (in my opinion).

If you don't - why are you considering upgrading? Just for the bump in version number? If 6.5 works fine, why not just keep using that?






I use/administer: vSphere 4 (ESX) | Workstation 6.5 | Vmware Server 2.0 | Windows 2003 | FreeBSD | Redhat EL

I use/administer: vSphere 6.0 (ESXi) | Workstation 12.5 | Vmware Server 2.0 | Vmware Fusion 12.5 | Windows | FreeBSD | Redhat EL
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