[Describing ELIPS Studio first commercial release, and how it works]

See the contents of new ELIPS Studio release, and how the licenses work.

Intro: history of ELIPS Studio

OpenPlug has been developing products and software for mobile phones for more than 8 years now. As some of you may know, our history is more around complete software solutions for feature phones, as ELIPS Suite, products that we license to Tier1 phone makers. ELIPS Suite is one of the only 3rd party framework to be shipped by Tier1 phone makers.

ELIPS Studio is born in the head of a few engineers in OpenPlug, in the middle of a study of our CTO Office. The initial purpose of this study was actually to improve ELIPS Suite with a tool to design the UI. This study ended up with much more.

We did our first demos in Barcelona, during Mobile World Congress 2009. We were demonstrating, in our booth, a compiler transforming ActionScript into compact, efficient machine code for mobile phones. Many people were impressed, including some folks from Adobe. We were impressed to raise so much interest.

We started working with some friendly partners, that was what we called the Alpha phase. We did some demos together, some of which we presented at Adobe Max. At that time, we were supporting only Windows Mobile, and later Symbian. Why did we start with those platforms, and not iPhone and Android? That's another story.

Then we launched our beta phase during Adobe Max, in october 2009. The number of users was rapidly growing, and we tried to keep up correcting issues, and adding features. We've built a relationship with some of those users, relationship that we're proud of. We were happy when we reached the first thousand users. We were proud when we saw the first apps popping in the various stores.

This phase is now over. Well not completely over, as you'll see below, but for most of it, we're entering a new phase.
It was much fun to start up this community. But we can't wait for this new phase! And most importantly, with commercial release you get commercial support - read below. And anyway, we need to eat!

Commercial!

The license management

We've implemented in ELIPS Studio an online license management.
This means basically that, once you've purchased your license, you need to login in ELIPS Studio, and it will automatically download the license information from our server.

As you have seen from the pricing page, there are 4 licenses of ELIPS Studio:

1. the Free license: it's what you get when you do not pay. Ads are inserted automatically in your apps, and we plan in the future to share the ads revenue with you. The Free edition is reserved for Independent Developers, but can also be used in corporations for evaluation purpose.
2. the Pro license: it's the full featured license for Professionals. It deactivates the ads, which can be optionally reactivated.
3. the Premium license: same as Pro, but with direct support: 10 assistance tickets included, that you can consume to request direct support (see below).
4. the Indie license: it's a special discount for independant developers. It's an a-la-carte edition: you pay for what you need.

When you login within ELIPS Studio, 3 possible cases:

1. you did not purchase a license: ELIPS Studio will then be configured as the Free edition. This also happens when it's the first time you're using the tool, and you're creating your account directly from it.
2. you did purchase a license (Indie, Pro, Premium): ELIPS Studio will automatically download the license credentials, and activate accordingly.
3. you are offline: ELIPS Studio will fall back in Free edition mode. If you create an account in Studio in offline mode, then at each startup it will try to send your information to our server.

In the future, ELIPS Studio will become more and more an online tool. But that's another story - keep posted, we'll share little by little!

OK, fine, but what about support??

First, of course, we'll continue investing some time in the Forum. This forum is a community forum, and some of our experts will continue answering questions, and gathering feedback, but in best effort mode.

If you need stronger or time-constrained assistance, the ticket system is there for you.
A ticket allows you to book some time with an expert from our dev team. It roughly corresponds to 0.5 to 1 man-day of one of our experts.
It can be for consultancy and support, but also for reporting a blocking issue and requesting a patch.

We're reusing a system that is currently being used with our Tier-1 customers (mobile phone makers, customers of ELIPS Suite, our other product).

Premium edition comes with 10 tickets.
We will very soon allow users of Pro and Free versions to purchase tickets from our online store.

Those ticket do not replace the forum!
Sometimes it's still better to ask questions in the Forum, as you will also benefit from other user's experience and answers.

Our FAQ provides some more information about this licenses and the support model. Do not hesitate to browse them.

Is the Beta over?

Well, yes and no.

As you may have seen elsewhere, we've decided to keep our Mac version in "beta stage", meaning it is still free for another couple of month. The main reason for it is that its quality is still behind, simply because we started working on this version long after our Windows version.

Also, as you have seen in the online store, we're still not happy about the quality of our Symbian and Windows Mobile runtimes, and same for the iPad. Therefore we've decided to keep those platforms beta, thus free for the time being.
This means that you do not need to pay for them as options to your Indie license. They will not contain ads.

New in this release

As we've communicated earlier, we did not implement much new features in this release, as in the couple of previous beta. We've invested a lot of efforts in improving the quality of our runtime(s), and of the tool.

But still, as we don't like flatness, we've added some new stuff:

• We've massively reduced the size of Android apps
• Following Beta7 and Beta7.1, we've again improved performances
• By reducing memory consumption, we've improved the stability of the runtime and of your apps
• There is now an API to query the phone current language (so that your app can start in the same language)
• The mob:TabNavigator is now mapped to native on Android, as on iPhone

Should I purchase now? Can I continue working, or will my product expire?

In order to give you, beta users, some time to purchase the edition you need, your current "beta license" is still valid, and will be valid until the end of August. Passed this limit, ELIPS Studio will fallback in offline mode.

Of course, once you purchase a paid license, it will replace the "beta license" in your account, and therefore be updated on your computer the next time you start ELIPS Studio with that account.

This is valid only for our existing beta users. If you are a new user, you will start in Free mode until you purchase a license.

What should I do now?

You can go and download our latest version of ELIPS Studio. If you're a new user, don't bother with account creation, you will be able to do it in 2 seconds within ELIPS Studio.

And additionally to all these good news, we've decided to provide a 30% discount on all licenses, during the first 3 months. All you have to do is to go to our store, select the product you will to purchase, and enter the voucher code: ES_LAUNCH_30 then update the cart.

- Cristian