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Vectorworks 2008 - available 13 Sept. 2007


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It's a real shame those customers outside of the U.S. are saddled with the dongle. I don't see any point to it at all except making VectorWorks more difficult to use and easier to lose for honest customers.

If people want a dongle for whatever reason then let them have it, but there's no reason to saddle the rest of us with it.

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I think the dongle is there because that way you can't make copies of it for others to use.

Anyone can download a non-dongled copy of VectorWorks from warez websites and put it on any machine they like if they're so inclined. All the dongle does it, when one doesn't want it, is impose difficulties on honest customers.

If you look at AutoCad, you can make copies and use them with very easy. And that's not wright

Yeah, well, AutoDesk is going out of business imminently now aren't they.

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As I understand, dongles and associated measures are the only available means for local distributors to protect their investment. In eg. Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the Benelux-countries, the distributors have localized VW in general and created local content, spending more money than you or I will ever see.

Customers outside of the U.S. pay for all the useless, pathetic McMansion "content" the good citizens of the Commonwealth of Maryland choose to purchase or develop, regardless of dongles, thereby subsidising American users. (Who, of course, could not survive without this clever exploitation scheme.)

I gather that the U.K. distributor does not do much localisation. Fair enough, assuming they do not put a huge mark-up on top of the price - but even this depends on the level & quantity of free support requested & required.

Are we, the proud citizens of the European Union, less conscientious than Americans? Would we use illegal software more than our revolutionary cousins? I don't think so. But the scale, the scale! Even if only 10000 users pay for the latest release of "Marvin the Paranoid Android" -windows, NNA makes a nice profit for the Germans.

And here am I, also paying for Paranoid Windows... The distributor arrangements are what they are.

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You seem to be talking about Actual, Planned & Premeditated Theft. I'm sure that you can find "cracked" software from various Mafias and Triads. Fine - that must be your primary point of reference.

I was simply referring to the ordinary, mundane "I'll give you a copy of this CD" -type of quite innocent operation.

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Protect their investment from what? Any additions to VectorWorks are easily shared are they not? What difference does a dongle make?

You can't share those additions. They can only be used with that one dongle. It seems that that dongle knows which parts of VW you can run, and which not. I tried it once and placed some plugins from onther version in to mine as a test, and it does not work. So be aware: The Dongle knows It!

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I was simply referring to the ordinary, mundane "I'll give you a copy of this CD" -type of quite innocent operation.

From what I can tell that kind of scenario is how many applications have become near-monopolies in their genre. There is certainly an argument that local distributors might actually be shooting themselves in the foot by imposing dongles, and could be making more return on their investment if people could in fact introduce others to VectorWorks by "innocently giving them a copy of a CD".

So not only are they potentially losing out on new customers but they're also pissing off some their current customer base by making them jump the dongle hurdle.

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In an ideal world, I'd agree with Christiaan.

Meanwhile in the jungle: I've gathered that the European distributors' sales have increased significantly after the introduction of dongles. This I would not call "shooting themselves in the foot"; instead, they are obviously making more return on their investment than before.

As dongles were, I believe, introduced by the said distributors' request, they could probably be removed by their request, should they know as much about Becoming Successful in Software Distribution Business as Christiaan does.

Edited by Petri
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Even if I knew, the information would be commercially confidential. But yes - I base my statements on "gathering" and "deduction", not to mention "common sense" and "experience".

Now, on what basis do you state that getting rid of dongles would improve the distributors' business?

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As Orso points out: the advantage of dongles is (ironicaly given the possibility of loss)portability.

In Australia we have the option for commercial lisences of a serial number (1 operating system only) or a dongle (either operating system)

for Educational and student they are dongle only.

I currently have a dongle running OS 10 for my private work, the same dongle running WinXP on a bootcamp partition at one clients workplace, and a separate educational dongle running on a separate User on OS10 for teaching work.

It's all a little clunky, but not really any big deal. (mind you; I haven't turned up at work with the wrong dongle..........yet)

For the ability to use it on both operating systems, I decided the dongle was worth it for me, despite the inconvenience.

N.

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FWIW. I am with Christaan. As an honest license holder with a dongle I only work from a MacBook Pro and sit petrified in meetings with my MBP out incase someone accidently plant a palm on top of my dongle snaps it off and then what do I do? Charge my client for breaking my ?xx dongle, and lets not forget the money I lose by not being able to do any CAD work till it gets replaced. And second to that you can't even ask for a spare from Computers Unlimited. Surely if the dongle is clever and stores the registration code against the computers ID (forgive my ignorance but I'm guessing each computer has it's own ID?) then what's the problem.

Thirdly why can't they make it you only need the dongle to open the software at least then you could pop it open up and then take it out and still have your spare USB port. And the list goes on and on...

Well that's the modern world we live in. Always hit the honest guy just trying to earn a living.

PS A slight amount of letting people have something for nothing is not always a bad thing. Nearly every peace of software I now own has probably come from me being able to use a free, loaned or borrowed copy first.

A note to NNA put a limited, license free VW out there to get people using your software and then you'll see a jump in sales as people see how much better and productive VW is compared to the others.

Grrrrr to dongles!

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