Silverfast v6.5 upgrade price

[anthony]

I'm confused about how much it costs to upgrade to 6.5. I currently own AI Studio and HDR+IT8 (v6.4.4r7). When I enter my AI Studio serial number the price is quoted as $105. When I enter my HDR serial number, the price is quoted as $279USD. That's $384 to upgrade what originally cost me $500, so that can't be right. The website quotes completely different prices on the 6.5 upgrade page and in fact gives two different prices for AI Studio. I'd like to know how much it would cost to upgrade both AI Studio and HDR+IT8 to 6.5 before I decide if the cost for obtaining the few new features is worthwhile for me.

Regards,
Anthony

[rickmp]

Hi,

I too have noticed some strangeness in upgrade pricing. In my case, the upgrade price for my copy of "Bundled SE" to AI Studio IT8 actually costs more than buying the full program outright. An upgrade price being more expensive than the full program seems a bit strange to me. I emailed Silverfast Sales and they responded with a request for my serial number, which I immediately provided. I received no reply. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the next day, I resent my message requesting a clarification - and still no reply. I guess my potential purchase of Silverfast is simply not important enough to LSI to warrant a reply. If the "pre-purchase" service is non-existent, it makes me somewhat fearful of what the post-purchase service experience would be.

No bitterness, just one person's observations. ;-)

Regards,

Rick

[anthony]

I also requested pricing clarification through a support request. They did finally get back to me after a little over a week. The pricing on the Silverfast 6.5 page is correct, and the other prices quoted are incorrect. Their webmaster has been notified of the problem. Until the problem is fixed the sales office will have to be contacted directly to get the upgrade.

Silverfast could have saved themselves a lot of trouble and sales support issues if only they had determined pricing and properly prepared their website _before_ they released 6.5. Instead, after 6.5 was announced the pricing changed more than once, the website was updated in bits and pieces (pricing still doesn't work) as people pointed out problems like the promise of free upgrades for version 6. Unhappy, frustrated customers leads to the loss of business from those customers and the loss of potential customers who hear about the bad experiences.

Regards,
Anthony

[rickmp]

Hello,

It took them over a week to respond? Ouch.

Based on the experiences we have noted and reading about the experiences of other posters to this board, it would seem that the internal workings of LSI have a few kinks to work out.

Since Silverfast enjoys somewhat of a unique position in the marketplace, there might not be great incentive for them to address any deficiencies in product or service. After all, they have no competition other than the manufacturers of the products people wish to use with Silverfast. And since people are seeking out third-party solutions, the softwares that ship with the various scanners are obviously wanting for features or usability. What other choice is out there? v**s**n is the only one that comes to mind and Sliverfast blows v**s**n out of the water.

Hopefully LSI will "get it together," as their product is basically a very good one, a few warts aside. Despite the functionality problems I have with Silverfast, I'd still buy it (when scanning 4x5 films, I still can't scan at the scanner's full hardware resolution when connected via Firewire [manufacturer's software does work under the same conditions] - USB works or I wouldn't consider buying it). But it still strikes me as strange that the upgrade price in my case is more expensive than buying the full version outright, especially when that wasn't the case last week. Hopefully I'll hear from them in a week or so. ;-)

Regards,

Rick

[anthony]

To get the correct price I highly recommend just calling the sales office if the website still shows something ridiculous. I called and they were extremely helpful (hint: I had just missed the November cut-off). I find it astonishing that the website hasn't been fixed yet. I'm forced to wonder if LSI understands the value of keeping the upgrade process as simple as possible and that their customers' time is valuable (not to mention the unnecessary burden they end up placing on the sales staff).

Personally, I do find that Silverfast does a great job once one figures out its quirks and that some cases it is the only tool for the job. I would definitely not recommend it to someone who is not computer-savvy, though. There are just too many quirks and bugs that can get in the way and cause unnecessary frustration.

I'd like to see this software succeed. From this point forward I plan to document and list each of the software defects I encounter. For future upgrades I will evaluate their demos against this list as well as scrutinize any new features to determine if the upgrade price is really worth it.

Regards,
Anthony

[rickmp]

Hi,

It would seem the pricing on the web page is finally in line with what the price should be for an upgrade; the pricing now shows the proper discount from my version - at least what LSI said the discount should be. It took some time for them to get back to me, but they did. Perhaps the delay was due to the holidays?

I too, would like to see the product succeed. For me, going from a bundled SE to an IT8 MultiExposure version would not be cheap, but the added functionality likely makes the considerable upgrade price worthwhile. The IT8/profiling feature would be nice, short of investing in a full version of Eye-One or Monaco.

Regards,

Rick