Standalone Build availability

[rchand445]

The standalone build module is currently available only for users who purchase the premier edition of Installshield 2009. That was not the case in the past, up until the issuance of Installshield 12.

When Installshield 12 was released, the end user license agreement stated that "users of earlier versions of InstallShield Professional Edition (10, 10.5, 11, and 11.5) are also entitled to use the Standalone Build".

Would owners of legacy Installshield products still have access to use the standalone build module for Installshield 2009? I did not see any references stating as such in the EULA lfor Installshield 2009..

[nitsev]

The bottom line is that SAB was included to begin with and as Chris points
out, we have bought and paid for it over and over again through the years. You buy maintenance to be updated with the latest technologies and protect your investment, not to have the software crippled and get reduced functionality.
What other features can we expect Acresso to remove for the next release? The possibility of using custom actions, prerequisites, system search?

You don't treat your loyal customers this way, period.

[TheTraveler]

Hello Everyone,

Something that should also be pointed out. The Stand Alone Build (SAB) was introduced in the Install Shield (IS) Professional tier and it was also offered in the Premier edition of IS. I agree with Chris that builds should not be on a developers box. This is done for several reasons which has enough discussion to be in its own thread and I'm not going to discuss them here. Simply put, it falls under best practices for developing teams. Chris also mentions that the licenses states you can install it multiple times onto several build machines. Why not limit the license to only allow one installation of the SAB for the professional edition who fall into the grandfather clause?

I should also point out some history of actions like this by other companies. Does anyone remember Oracle? They too revamped their licensing of their database product. So much so that it made it too expensive for software developers to package their product with it. So what did these developers do? The moved and/or migrated over to using Microsoft SQL Server and got rid of Oracle. Just like now, a lot of people understand the reasons why they did it and at the same time, it wasn't cost effective for them to continually use the product. Could history repeat itself? I hope not. I like Install Shield and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. So yes, I'm a loyal customer and I would like to remain so.

[LanceRas]

I think what you bring up, having a single license for the SAB for those in the grandfathered period, could be a reasonable compromise.

Then again. We're all here sitting in the bleachers.

[Christopher_Pai]

I had reason to believe that this issue was close to be resolved but I've yet to hear the announcement.

[willstott]

I completely agree with Christopher: Production (release) candidate builds need to be done in a controlled Build & Test Environment. Even if you're working in a team of one you should still have a separate PC for making your release builds. You also need to automate the build process in order to get consistent results, i.e. eliminate all manual steps as they might be missed or done incorrectly. Therefore taking any sort of professional approach to software development means you must have the ability to compile everything from the command line; i.e. standalone build. This includes source code, help files, and of course the install program.

I take issue with Acresso using the word 'Pro' on a product that doesn't have standalone build functionality. By all means call it 'InstallShield Amateur', but not 'InstallShield Pro' 😉 Without SAB it's simply not a tool that any self-respecting professional would want to use. This leads me to question how much Acresso marketing people understand about the nature of software development.

What Acresso should be doing is encouraging people to use SAB not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because it will result in greater sales revenue for very little extra development investment. The increase in sales will come from keeping their customers happy and so being able to push things like their team based 'InstallShield Colaboration' product (which I understand is selling badly). The small development investment arises because SAB cannot be anything more than InstallShield without the GUI layer; i.e. a subset of the product they already produce.

I would respectfully suggest Acresso accept most teams will buy just one copy of either 'Pro' or 'Premier' and will expect to get SAB bundled into the package. Instead of bullying customers to buy an upgrade to 'Premier' they should instead concentrate on getting the rest of the team to buy 'InstallShield Collaboration'. This is where their real market potential lies and encouraging people to use SAB must be seen as a key stepping stone to cracking it. It's simply a case of getting your customers interested in better software development practices (i.e. using SAB) then selling them additional tools (i.e. Collaboration) to support their efforts. How's that for a marketing strategy?

Will

[TheTraveler]

When you talked about Install Shield (IS) Amateur product, they actually have that. It is called Install Shield Express and it rightfully doesn't have a Stand Alone Building (SAB) feature. It has been that way since the beginning of the IS Express product line. As a marketing strategy, I would try to encourage IS Express customers to move to the Professional version. Then use the sales pitch of using best practices in using the SAB. Not to mention the fact that you can do a whole lot more with the IS Professional platform then with the Express version. What should also be mentioned is the fact that there are a whole lot of Installation Developers in this community that are more than willing to help with support, sample code, and their experience.

How is that for a marketing plan???

[Qingsong]

Christopher Painter wrote:
I had reason to believe that this issue was close to be resolved but I've yet to hear the announcement.

I am waiting for their official announcement as well.

If there is SAB in Pro, I will upgrade my 2008 to 2009. Otherwise, I have to move away for the new functionalities.

[slowhand]

Qingsong wrote:
I am waiting for their official announcement as well.

If there is SAB in Pro, I will upgrade my 2008 to 2009. Otherwise, I have to move away for the new functionalities.

Same situation for me.
Our management is not willing to pay the money for the upgrade to the premier version. We use InstallShield since Version 10.5, and paying 1000 bucks for a new version with only a handful new features was hard, but that takes the biscuit.

Although switching to an alternative is also time and money consuming, what else can we do? Maybe in installShield 2010 the next features is removed from the Pro Edition....

[nitsev]

I talked to my sales resp. today and according to him there are no plans to include SAB in Pro. It is permanently moved to Premier so your options are to switch tool or upgrade. For us, upgrading to Premier and updating the maintenance agreement is almost €3000. Of course the yearly maintenance fee is also higher after that.

[NAndre]

Hello, I don't understand this company.
They remove an important feature from a professional software.
A premium software is a special edition, including all features.
An express software is a low level software, this is okay without SAB, and the yahoo toolbar support.
But I don't understand, with the professional software edition I get the
"Value Added Services --> yahoo toolbar", which I never will use as honest an reliable software devoloper, and I lose a "professional" feature?
It's not fun, it is foul play!

It is an amateur edition, not a professional edition.

I hope I get time in my company, to search for a better product.
Have anybody any idea?

Best regards
André

[brianmurphy]

This, quite frankly, is ridiculous and has prompted me to come out of a four year lurking stint to agree with the posters above. SAB is a critical feature and essential to any build system. Dealing with Installshield's many "quirks" these last few years has been a barely tolerable part of my working day but this downgrading is cynical and the last straw. I've just cancelled an upgrade for 3 Pro licenses while I try identify alternatives. If we can get SAB then ok but otherwise no deal Acresso.

[Christopher_Pai]

nitsev wrote:
I talked to my sales resp. today and according to him there are no plans to include SAB in Pro. It is permanently moved to Premier so your options are to switch tool or upgrade. For us, upgrading to Premier and updating the maintenance agreement is almost €3000. Of course the yearly maintenance fee is also higher after that.

It's interesting that you mention that. Two weeks ago I had an hour long back channel conversation with someone in management at Acresso and I was told that plans were in the work to address this issue. I gave this person the professional courtesy of keeping the discussion confidential while they executed a plan.

In those two weeks, I've seen absolutely no communication or execution of a change in policy and I'm starting to believe that I was misled in order to keep me silent.

[JeffGreenwald]

We recognize that their may have been some confusion regarding the availability of the Standalone build with the release of InstallShield 2009. To assist our longtime loyal customers in this transition, we are granting access to the Standalone build functionality under the following criteria. Specifically, InstallShield 2008 Professional customers on active maintenance who also licensed InstallShield Professional 10.x or InstallShield Professional 11.x will be granted access to the Standalone build functionality.

For future releases of InstallShield, the Standalone Build functionality will continue to be packaged exclusively with the Premier Edition as announced with the release of InstallShield 12 in 2006. InstallShield Professional customers looking to leverage the Standalone Build module will need to upgrade to the InstallShield Premier edition. Each full license of InstallShield Premier Edition includes 10 Standalone Build modules.

Efforts are currently underway to update the Standalone build installer to support the model described above. Additional information will be posted to this community once these efforts are completed.

Thanks,
Jeff Greenwald
Director, Product Management

[LanceRas]

Thank you Jeff.

I think this gesture will help get Acresso off on the right foot in the minds of long time maintenance agreement holders.

I think this serves (along with product details for IS2010 when released) as pretty much end of the line notice to all us long timers with pro versions on maintenance and allows us to make the difinitive choice to either continue our agreement, upgrade ONE license to Premier, stay with IS2009 or look elsewhere.

[MNSwiftOne]

without it - I wasted 4 hours this morning.
We had the 2008 standalone installed on the build machine - 2009 - and this feed stated we would not get it - so I installed 2009 Professional on our BUILD machine.

We only have one build machine - and using the standalone on the build machine permitted us to keep it clean as debugging could be done elsewhere
.
Last Friday I had to debug an installer failure - was not working just right - eventually installed our product on the Build machine - re-writing the 'Registry' entries for registered (licensed) dll files. Yes, these would in theory get reset when uninstalled - but portions of our installer script manually call reg32 to register files - it was written long ago and slowly updated by me and others over many years... but very, very large and not all parts are fixed.
I had to spend another 1/2 hour today cleaning up the build machine, restoring database files, uninstalling SQL Server etc. that were modified when the product installed.

Yes - we are legacy - so after contacting my sales support rep, I recieved a link to the standalone and have resolved this problem.

Jeff - PLEASE REMEMBER - if, as you state will happen, with InstallShield 2010 Professional finally providing no standalone install builder... I would rather redirect our company to a new installer medium than try and come up with a solution like the one I have had for the last weeks (Debug for 6 hours, restore an hour, make a build an hour) and repeat that sequence daily for weeks when it should not be necessary...
Also, our company does not have the financial resources to upgrade to Premier (Almost did not make this renewal - with this market - think about it!), and waiting weeks each new InstallShield release for enough people to complain before management decides to release the standalone to Pro users - is very aggrevating...
We have been using Installshield here since version 7 or 8 I think...

Your sales rep suggested I post my concerns here - and that others should also post if this affects them so management will see how many are affected... (and like me who was not going to post)...

My suggestion - Make the standalone part of Professional as it was before.
Come out with another version without standalone with the limited features you currently want professional to have... and thus - keep the Professional people on Professional... call the new one something like 'Small Business Edition' or 'Limited Pro Edition'...

remember 400 customers * less profit each is often more than 100 customers * more profit each... look at the online winners - selling less than everyone else - their quantity in sales far exceed anyone - thus their profit is also greater... (does management need a marketing class)?

[Christopher_Pai]

JeffGreenwald wrote:

Efforts are currently underway to update the Standalone build installer to support the model described above. Additional information will be posted to this community once these efforts are completed.

Is there an update on this release? I have a ticket open with support and they keep trying to close my ticket since they haven't heard from me instead of the other way around.

[JeffGreenwald]

The Standalone Build installer has been updated and is now available for InstallShield 2009 Professional customers under the following criteria: InstallShield 2008 Professional customers on active (paid) maintenance who also licensed InstallShield Professional 10.x or InstallShield Professional 11.x will be granted access to the Standalone Build functionality. To obtain access to the InstallShield 2009 Standalone Build installer or if you have any questions regarding your access to the Standalone Build functionality please contact your Acresso account representative.

North America: 800-809-5659
EMEA: +44 (0) 870 873 6300
APAC: +81 3 4530 0342
Or
Contact Sales Online - http://www.acresso.com/company/contact_us.htm?link_id=relatedLinks

[Lyle_Salam]

Jeff, I am confused.

As a customer since 5.5 of Prof. with Silver maint contract for our one development seat, I was thrilled to finally see the SAB feature show up several years ago.

Am I understanding that with 2010, it will not be available for grandfathered support contracts ? Or if it is, it will be limited in some way to less than 10 build seats ?

Perhaps the SAB needs to be packaged and licensed independently.
It can be provided free to those that "purchased" it as part of IS Prof at the point that it was introduced years back, as a new customer, or via a maint. contract. To new customers they can purchase it as an add on to prof. or buy premium which can include it.

[Lyle_Salam]

Jeff, I am confused.

As a customer since 5.5 of Prof. with Silver maint contract for our one development seat, I was thrilled to finally see the SAB feature show up several years ago.

Am I understanding that with 2010, it will not be available for grandfathered support contracts ? Or if it is, it will be limited in some way to less than 10 build seats ?

Perhaps the SAB needs to be packaged and licensed independently.
It can be provided free to those that "purchased" it as part of IS Prof at the point that it was introduced years back, as a new customer, or via a maint. contract. To new customers they can purchase it as an add on to prof. or buy premium which can include it.

[LanceRas]

From what I've been reading between the lines, Lyle, is that they decided to take away the SAB for the Pro people, but then made the decision (I think because of licensing terminology) for those on maintenance to still have access to it.

A decision recently was made to finally pull the plug for Pro customers. While the quality of that decision could be ( and was) debated, the decision was made, none the less. Acresso made the decision to reinstate for one final time, the SAB for maintenance people mainly (IMHO) because of the fact that this was not made very clear and in a timely manner so that those on maintenance can factor that into their buying decision to renew.

I think this was a good faith effort by Acresso to appease those on maintenance. And at this point, anyone who's remains on maintenance with the Pro edition has been pretty much "put on notice" if you will that this is the end of the road. And like you said.... "Grampa is dead"... so thats all folks.