Re: Ending Confusion on Zend Core

Jim Dillard wrote:

All,

There have been posts in many different forums about whether or not Zend
Core is free. You can cut n paste this response there if you feel this
will clear up any confusion.

"Software: Zend Core for IBM i (also known as Zend Core for i5/OS <hear
Trevor groan as he reads "i5/OS" > ) can be installed and run for free.
Period.
Support: for those that downloaded Core for the first time prior to
1/1/09 you are entitled to 3 years of Silver Support (details at
http://www.zend.com/en/services/support/production-sla) and for those
that downloaded for the first time on 1/1/09 or later you are entitled
to one year of Silver support.

Obviously those of you interested in utilizing Platform, phone-based
support, training, and/or services can do so by paying Zend a fee. I
know -- the audacity of Zend trying to generate revenue. ;-) "

Actually, it's an ongoing issue with the various meanings of the word free.

WDSC was free for a long time, or at least it seemed to be. It really wasn't - it was paid for by your purchase of 5722WDS. But eventually that model just didn't work and IBM moved to RDi as its own fee-based product. As you say, the audacity of IBM trying to generate revenue. This caused great consternation among a few folks who insisted that IBM include all that tooling for free forever, but in general it's gone reasonably well. Some folks are sticking with the old beater until they drive it into the dirt, while some have upgraded to the new tools. But the primary resentments came from that initial concept of what the word "free" meant.

Similar confusion exists with Zend. More than one person has said that Zend Core is free, the same way that WDSC was free. It is not. As you've pointed out, Zend Core is free but the support is limited and even that ends in a year. WDSC was a fully supported IBM product with all that that entails, including being able to log tickets and get PTFs through the standard IBM process. This is the way RDi ad RDi-SOA are supported today, the difference of course being that these are strictly for-fee products, more comparable to Zend Platform.

The closer comparison between IBM tooling and Zend Core would be IBM's Community Edition products, which currently include things like DB2 Express C, WebSphere CE and EGL CE, all of which are entirely free for both development and distribution, have forum-based support, and also provide for-fee support options.

I'm not sure how much support for Zend Core costs when the free trial periods expires. I read an older Four Hundred article stating Zend Core Silver Support is $4000 for 1-2 CPUs and $8000 for 3-4 CPUs, but the Zend site has considerably lower prices: it's only $2000 and $3000 for Gold and Platinum support for models 515/520/525 (but that same page has no option for Silver Support). Regardless, in order to avoid the "delayed sticker shock" that hit folks when WDSC was replaced by the for-fee RDi products, it's good that you are being absolutely clear that while the base version of the product, Zend Core, is and will remain free, after a year users of Zend Core will be expected to pay for even Silver Support.

Joe