JoomlaLMS price concept and JoomlaLMS pros and cons

[hahaman123]

Is $299 for one year or it is a one-time deal?
For $299, we can have no more than 30 concurrent users? Do we need to use your flash server in order for this LMS to work?
Thanks.

[andreas]

So as to give you a quick answer.... here is the unofficial trial. I am just a tester of the tool - and we testers have struggled long and hard to get a clear price structure ;-) but it is still somewhat confusing.....

For 299$ you can have 100 concurrent students for one year.
If you have more students at the same time, it will become more expensive.

You do not need a flash server for the LMS to work. However, if you want to use video conferencing, you have three choices:

a) have your own flash server (fairly expensive, I would say!)
b) use any commercial service of your liking (costs about the same as option
c) use the service of elearningforce (the makers of JoomlaLMS).

In case c) having up to 100 students cost 121$ extra - i.e. 420$ a year, allowing you to have up to 10 people in one video conference (which for e-learning usually is enough). If again you want to have more students on the webconference, it will be more expensive, as you obviously use more bandwith.

So overall, JoomlaLMS is not "OpenSource", in fact it is quite expensive for a Joomla module, yet far away from typically commercial prices for an LMS with these kind of features. What you will like is the support, especially in this forum ;-) ...

Hope this helps!

[den]

$299 is for one year license, next year you should continue it.

[gibarra]

hello

It's amazing your component, so i assume you will have a commercial weakness to expand it, because the most of the users (not BIG COMPANIES) who choose joomla as CMS don't like functionalities where we need pay licenses each year for the same product .... is unusual !!!

Really i'd like take the decision to buy 1 licence for your component but not each year ...

Gonzalo Ibarra
www.gonzaloibarra.com

[andreas]

Your argument is one that we - the testers - have discussed with elearningforce for quite some time.... Yes, I think the price is unusually high for the opensource community.
Background is.... Bjarne sees himself as competitor to Blackboard and similar commercial products - which means the prices are unusually low!
His approach seems to be "middle of the road" - i.e. high enough to be taken serious by the "big wigs" looking for commercial products and low enough to still tempt the open source community.
Whether this will work remains to be seen.

For the time being the pricing policy means: no long term investment (an unlimited license would be quite a bit more expensive), but constant updates and hard work to further improve the product, outstanding and quick support (of which you can be sure, as elearningforce has to fear that customers leave), and - last but not least - hopes for some price reduction in the future (depending probably somewhat on the number of users).

[admin]

The overall ideas for ALL our e-learning products - including the upcoming e-learning authoring package - are, that all teachers MUST be able to pay for the products and being non-technicians. I simply want teachers to start using e-learning - that's all!

To keep this ideology going and being able to continue doing new products - we need some income.

I know we have products you cannot find elsewhere incl. the same loads of features and I believe that the pricing is indeed very low compared to some other commercial vendors of e-learning products. And they also use a yearly license model but for BIG money!

So I will not change this license model - but of course: we have done some special licenses for larger customers and of course we can be flexible.

Thanks.

Bjarne

[andreas]

So I will not change this license model

Well, Bjarne, don't promise what you may not be able to keep ;-)

As I am not getting tired at pointing out: one of the most outstanding features of elearningforce is the excellent support. This does cost time and therefore money. And everyone will understand that (at least in the longrun).

Just imagine - and everybody seems to agree that the potential is there - JoomlaLMS becomes THE leading LMS - well, or at least A leading LMS and your business booms. Knowing you I would think you would tend to keep prices stable, while other companies with more commercial than "ideological" --- or is it idealistic ;-) --- background would tend to abuse their monopoly.

Again, I do not want you to make promises you can't keep, but I think you are a nicer guy than some people suspect ;-) .... Nevertheless it is important that the little startup teachers or schools are heard as well. For them there need to be good arguments for the upfront and regular cost - in the face of free competitors (like Moodle, etc.). I believe you have these arguments.

[jmcmanus]

I believe in open source as a foundation for encouraging development. I also believe that developers should be encouraged to produce products that augment open source code such as Joomla even in a purchase model. What you guys have done with this LMS is fantastic. I am heartily ready to present it to my management (the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State) demanding (begging) that they allow me to proceed with production. We have recently been considering products such as Adobe Connect to provide an e-learning environment. The price tag for that model is $75k - $100k. I can only imagine the flash server process so it is a guess how it actually compares with AC. From what I've seen this evening on the non-flash side it has to be good. We will also be very interested in the booking functionality. Anyway, please email me at jmcmanus@sosnc.com if you wish to discuss our interest in greater detail. As for your critics? Get a life! (just kidding)

Gratefully,

James A McManus
Applications Development Manager
NC Department of the Secretary of State
2 S. Salisbury St.
Raleigh, NC 27529
919.807.2191

[andreas]

Thanks for the contribution. I guess, when you present JoomlaLMS you should "accidentally" add a couple of "00" behind the price tag to be taken serious :-)

This is exactly the wonderful dilemma of Elearningforce (in my view): they are between the market you describe (Adobe, Blackboard etc.) and the open source community which takes free for granted. Both extremes are problematic. That's why I am on record for fighting the tight GPL interpretation of the Joomla core team..... So in a way, I am a bit of a devil's advocate (I'd rather be God's advocate, but he doesn't need one), wishing for lower prices in the commercial world and for the option to charge (as an option!) in the Joomla world. I think, generally speaking Elearningforce has struck a good balance. ... And having a special offer once in while (like right now) doesn't really harm them in the end!

:-)

[Bubba]

I was wondering if someone can help me with a Quote on a 300 person license and what all will I need? Does it include Flash server and Hosting if not how much for total?

Thank you,

Bubba Davis

[vladimir]

Hello

To James: contacted

To Andreas: thank you for all your help! Hope one day we will add couple of of "00" behind the price tag ;)

To Davis:

If you want just to buy 300 user license then you need <500 user license.

Without Flash conference and other add modules it will cost you 399 USD only. To imagine a price with Flash conference and etc just follow to http://www.joomlalms.com/buy_now/

If you have any additional questions - please submit them to lms@elearningForce.biz

Have a great days guys!

Vlad

[Andrew]

JoomlaLMS represents exceptional value and the support is great. The improvements just since it was launched are significant. As long as the pricing remains as it is I don't think that users can grumble. They should be delighted!

Andrew

[hahaman123]

i think it would be better if you offer one time deal instead of annual renewal. i don't know anything about commercial products. als if you could give a list of customers, that would be great because i want to see how the lms works.

[den]

One time deal is possible, just contact us http://www.joomlalms.com/contacts/

Also check this thread http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595

[hahaman123]

thanks. looks like that joomlalms is targeted at big big companies, not the people who are doing small businesses because the price is just way too high for an average person.

[vladimir]

Think you are speaking of perpetual license, then it might be big for a small companies as cost 3 times more then annual license in any case look at anual standard license. The cost is as low as 299 USD + if you can apply to our special offer then it will be 99 USD discount for you.

[andreas]

looks like that joomlalms is targeted at big big companies, not the people who are doing small businesses because the price is just way too high for an average person.

Obviously you would have preferred a different answer and a cheaper product. I can sympathise with your need. Yes - again - JoomlaLMS does not come cheap and is not geared at private persons.

However, my wife for instance is a one person company - and uses JoomlaLMS and slowly builds a range of customers - which hopefully will become a lot of paying customers to get back the investment. In any case, being an education provider is serious business, not hobby, does cost money and can make money. But - as Bjarne stated - the cost should not hinder education. With the price structure given, it is affordable even for small businesses. If it doesn't work out for a business (for whatever reason) all you lose is the investment for one year, not more... And with the trial version the year even has 13 months!

On the other hand - if you want to provide learning content without buying JoomlaLMS, try offering your courses to somebody who does run a LMS. You might be surprised. In our case (Germany) we welcome education providers who want to offer courses on our plattform (obviously - no sex & crime etc.). This may also help to gather experience and some funds to start your own e-Learning plattform.

[reiuno]

thanks. looks like that joomlalms is targeted at big big companies, not the people who are doing small businesses because the price is just way too high for an average person.

Whether JoomlaLMS is appropriate for small startups or not is actually an interesting point. But in my opinion among others I know such as webct, moodle and dokeos. JoomlaLMS is the best when you think of ROI(Return/Investment). You know, small startups should care about ROI.

WebCT: Return might not be bad, but the initial investment is huge.
Moodle: Initial investment is none or minimum, but what about the expected return? Personally I doubt you can attaract potential customers by using moodle when you think of the poor user interface.
Dokeos: I almost tried to choose this before I found JoomlaLMS.

[andreas]

Well, Dokeos turns more and more commercial for one thing... (Add ons, plugins) But more important, Dokeos is geared towards universities only. They will not really work well with continuing education and free market enterprises / companies. JoomlaLMS does just this - and much better than Moodle. (Believe me, I used Moodle for quite a while, then Dokeos and now JoomlaLMS) ;-)

[timgdixon]

Ok I am trying to understand the pricing for this product, but I am afraid I have to ask anyway.

---Does the 30 user license mean:

1. No more than 30 users simultaneously using the application?
2. No more than 30 users in the calendar year of the license?

I like what I see so far, but before I get all involved with this I need to know what the limits are of the license. I am assuming that whichever one of the above meanings are would apply whether it was 100 or 500?

TD

[den]

Our license politic closer to your 2nd point.

100 license user - it is a number of users which are registered as LMS learners.

I will explain more detailed:
- 'guest' users at your site - these users don't have accounts and they are not estimated as license users.
- 'Registered' users - these users have their accounts at your Joomla site - they are not estimated as license users too.
- Learners - users who registered in the LMS as learner (in other words who've learn in the courses) - only these users are counted as the licensed users. The maximum number of users in the DB could't be more than in the license you bought.

To remove any user from the number of licensed LMS users - need to remove him from the LMS DB. After this he still will have access to the site as 'registered' Joomla user.

[vladimir]

Whether JoomlaLMS is appropriate for small startups or not is actually an interesting point. But in my opinion among others I know such as webct, moodle and dokeos. JoomlaLMS is the best when you think of ROI(Return/Investment). You know, small startups should care about ROI.

WebCT: Return might not be bad, but the initial investment is huge.
Moodle: Initial investment is none or minimum, but what about the expected return? Personally I doubt you can attaract potential customers by using moodle when you think of the poor user interface.
Dokeos: I almost tried to choose this before I found JoomlaLMS.

I agree with Reiuno about the ROI point and want to add here one more PLUS to JoomlaLMS piggy bank: To my mind it is the best product to build Elearning portals, websites or Intranet solutions as it is based on well known Joomla CMS:

1) Joomla Cms is the world best Freeware CMS http://www.joomla.org/content/view/4122/74/

2) It is really good in security: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php?topic=100948.msg505428

3) Joomla CMS has more then 1200 components and modules used to extend it functionality: http://www.joomla.org/content/view/1885/50/

Pros and contras :) ?

[luke409]

Den, I have to say I feel very uneasy about the business model you're using. I have read all the posts, but these are my pre-purchase concerns, and I wonder if anyone would like to address them?

1. When people register for a course, you hope to get them to sign up for subsequent courses. However, sometimes they don't do it for months or years, if ever. Yet we want to keep them in your database so when they do come back they can quickly sign-up for another course, see previous courses they took, etc.

However, Den, it appears that the way you have things set up, e-teachers must continue to pay you to keep students in the database even though they are not presently active. I can see how this works for your in pricing, but it works against the e-teacher. We must pay increasingly larger licensing fees over time (as the database grows) even though the students in the database may or may not be active. Yes, I understand students can be removed, but that defeats the whole purpose of having them in the database for possible repeat sales.

Is there a way where students can be semi-active? That is, we do not pay the database user license fee, but they are still in the system so they can sign up quickly again?

2. I am concerned that your code is compiled in the affordable version. What happens if you go out of business, as we know happens every day? All users of JoomlaLMS are at risk of huge financial losses due lack of user licenses or ability to get annual upgrade. There is a huge investment in creating courses--and it appears your licensing terms do nothing to protect that investment. My e-teaching business could fail if your business closes or fails, and I don't like the idea of being dependent on you.

How can JoomlaLMS purchasers be protected in this case? Yes, I understand that a perpetual license is available for $3,000 (is the code restricted on that as well?), but that seems over the top for a Joomla add-on. Is there any other Joomla add-on so expensive? I don't think so.


3. I want to be kind and polite about this next concern, but you don't seem to have any contact data on the JoomlaLMS web site other than an e-mail form. No phone number? No street address? It is common business practice to supply these details and I'm wondering why you do not show them on your contact page?

It is my understanding that you may be in Belarus or Russia. Is that true? I have been in Russia and Ukraine 6 times in the past couple years on business, and I see firsthand how unstable business conditions are there. For example, there is another LMS I'm interested in, but it is created by a company in Yoshkar-Ola, in the Mari-El Republic of Russia. Having been to Yoshkar-Ola I am somewhat reluctant to do business with vendors there, so am looking at different products like yours. On the other hand, I would not do business at all with anyone in Belarus due to the unstable government there. So, where are you located?

I am sure some people here will think my comments are unkind, but they are not. Why would I go to Eastern Europe so often if I did not appreciate the people there? I really like the people of Eastern Europe. But I am a realist when it comes to risk. I am not worried about losing $200-500, I am worried about losing the delivery system you provide, if you fail, and the income I receive by offering training online.

I like Joomla and JoomlaLMS seems like it functions well. You seem to have a good product, but the licensing seems bad. From an e-teaching businessman's point-of-view" JoomlaLMS seems to have "risk" written all over it.

Your thoughts?

[robertpb]

It cracks me up that JoomlaLMS folks sell their product by touting Joomla's features. (Including in this thread).

It seems to me that they should be selling their product, not Joomla-- after all, one can get all of Joomla's features by just doing a Moodle integration. Imagine how much more value Joomla adds to the community for free then JoomlaLMS adds for $299/year (for 100 users).

A developer with more time (if I had more time it might be me) is going to do a good Moodle integration for free (there are halfway ones out there): then you might see JoomlaLMS' prices go down. $299/year for 100 users max is tough for startups.

That said, there's nothing wrong with making money. If people are willing to pay then ok. I've had a lot of experience with Moodle: the UI isn't really any better or worse than JoomlaLMS in my opinion; the only way it's worse is that it's not smoothly integrated into Joomla.

For free today, you can get an integration with Moodle and Joomla that has Moodle using the Joomla database for it's authentication/user info. All of this is possible using base Moodle! The only problem is when someone registers into Joomla and they enter the Moodle module, they have to enter a few more registration fields once. This is where the customization needs to be done.

[luke409]

Well, roberpb, you have a point about the combined power of 2 free programs, Joomla and Moodle, but they have their limitations at this point. The payment gateway with Moodle is still pretty crude as well as the issues you mention.

I believe Den has a good product, but a very poor licensing agreement. The way Den is doing it, his company is not sharing risk with his customers. Everyone is at his mercy to stay in business. Would anyone really want to put their business in the hands of some guy who does not provide contact data on his contact page, other than an e-mail address that might be in Russia or Belarus?

I would like to use JoomlaLMS, but I would like a reason to trust Den. As it is, he can put everyone out of business overnight. I think his product is good and he is probably a nice guy, but his business model does not inspire trust. It would be foolish to use a product like JoomlaLMS for the reasons I mention in my previous post.

But then again, I may have it wrong, roberpb. That's why I would like Den (or other JoomlaLMS official) to respond to my concerns.

[den]

First of all, thanks for your interesting in our product.
I would like to clarify: I am not an owner of the JoomlaLMS, i am only a major developer of this product and a supporter.
So, i will try to answer for your questions from the developer-side.

About your 1st concern regarding to our license policy:
As you understand registered users in Joomla are different from LMS license users. You can keep their login to site, buy keeping them in the Joomla database and delete them from LMS if they are not active. So, i think that this point is explained carefully, let's go to your suggestion about estimating last time of user access to site:
You could understand that such information could be stored in the DB and as developer i can say that such license check is very easily to bypass. We as well as you want to protect our investment.

The main difference between JoomlaLMS and Moodle is a FULLY integration with Joomla. As developer I can say that you will never get a fully integration of Moodle-Joomla, you will never get a fully integration with Joomla templates without rewriting most of Moodle code (how about updates after rewriting?), you will never get a fully integration with Joomla modules and mambots without big investments.
As I know there was a commercial bridge between Moodle and Joomla for 125$, but it is only a bridge for such price, what about native LMS component?

Robert, your integration solution is easily to improove by installing CB and writing some plugins for it, but as I say before it will be only a login bridge without any other integration advantages.

[vladimir]

Nice to hear that even at “New Year eve” people think about Elearning.

I represent ElearningForce Inc official side and have been working for ElearningForce Inc for 4 years. You can know more about ElearningForce company at it’s official site (http://www.elearningforce.biz/about-us.html). Yes, we are not hiding that we have our offices in Belarus and Russia and consider this as advantage as we follow the best trends in IT – outsourcing is on the pick of wave and major IT companies like IBM,Google etc have outsourcing centres all over the world.

On the other hand if you would like to contact us over the phone– you can contact any our reseller http://www.joomlalms.com/partners.html or request a contact through the email.

Right now let me comment some of your thoughts:

Q: I am concerned that your code is compiled in the affordable version. What happens if you go out of business, as we know happens every day
A: That question can be asked from any company. ElearningForce is on the market for the 10 years and our reputation is not touched and we are proud of it. If you would like to get know more about our products and company you can visit Elearning exhibition early January 2008 in UK(http://www.bettshow.com) where JoomlaLMS and SharepointLMS will be presented.
Also as you have mentioned you can buy perpetual license of unlimited users for the price that is much cheaper then other paid good LMS products can offer.

Answering to Robert:
Q: It cracks me up that JoomlaLMS folks sell their product by touting Joomla's features. (Including in this thread).
A: Yes we do sale add on to Joomla CMS and we are proud that JoomlaLMS product in conjunction with powerfull and award winning Joomla CMS is one of the best products on the market both for existing Joomla community or just people who are looking for a good Elearning solution.

Again wish to all Happy new year!!!
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=745

[luke409]

Thanks, Vladimir, for your reply. You have helped me make my final decision... I will not be using JoomlaLMS, even though I would like to use it.

Why?

You say >> "Yes, we are not hiding that we have our offices in Belarus and Russia and consider this as advantage as we follow the best trends in IT..." Nonsense! Belarus is like the wild west and smart companies don't do business there. The totalitarian government there makes it a bad place for business.

See what the U.S. State Department says about Belarus:

http://belarus.usembassy.gov/mccormack_on_repression091107.html
http://belarus.usembassy.gov/mccormack_intimidation032207.html

If you think being in, or dealing with, Belarus is a "best trend" then that would destroy trust in your company.

You say >> "...you can contact any our reseller ..."

That means nothing. When you go out of business, they go out of business too.

You say >> "...request a contact through the email...."

Again, trusted companies don't suppress this information. It is freely available. Why not post your contact details? That would build trust.

You say >> "...Also as you have mentioned you can buy perpetual license of unlimited users for the price that is much cheaper then other paid good LMS products can offer."

Not really true. You offer a good combination of features in JoomlaLMS, but you have much competition. See:

http://elearning-india.com/content/blogcategory/19/38/


You did not answer all the questions in my original post, Vladimir, and robertpb was a bit off-topic. However, I think you have a good product and are probably nice people, but I could never trust my business to you considering your licensing policies. In my view, they are unreasonable and do little or nothing to protect the needs of your users.

Thank you for your response.

[andreas]

I think, Luke's criticism is for most points reasonably argued and needs to be looked into. So let me try to put my little bit of wisdom into it....

Point 1
It is important to differentiate between registered users (not part of the licensing scheme) and users registered for courses (this is where the counter ticks...). The problem Luke describes comes in, when you want to keep the records of previous course achievements of a user - because otherwise you can make an LMS user inactive without loosing the Joomla Registered User status. Indeed - a solution where for instance course results from previous course users can be automatically be exported, after which such users are deactivated in the LMS would be something worthwhile looking into. (Version 1.0.9 .... because it takes time before the problem appears at all)

Point 2
As has been pointed out.... going out of business of a software company always creates problems. In the case of JoomlaLMS the difference to other software is this: Going out of business does not mean, getting no more upgrades, but means the software will not work at all at the end of the year. While I do not expect Elearningforce to go out of business, this is something people can get concerned about! However, it is important to note that course content (i.e.Learning Paths) is produced with different software and can be used on any LMS that follows some standards. So if (!!!) indeed Elearningforce should "disappear" without any successor (that is rare by the way for a good product), what you will lose is the framework (the LMS), but not the content. And you are absolutely right - the development of the content is the most expensive and crucial investment to protect.

Point 3
Yes, Luke is right - it is not clear, whether Elearningforce is a Danish company or one registered on the Seychelles. Both is true, I believe. But it is not - from all I understand - a Russian company or one in Belarus, but rather uses developpers from those countries. Maybe Bjarne needs to state some facts more clearly here. However, I had no problems reaching Bjarne via Skype and have communicated with several very helpful developpers of the team both via email and Skype. Business always requires trust, but from my experience not on the political, but on the personal level. I try to get to know the people I am dealing with as best I can. This does not guarantee an absence of disappointments, but neither does political correct companies in political correct countries. For instance Europeans are VERY concerned about a company called Microsoft - see the more recent decisions of the European Court... ;-)

Now, I am not sure whether I missed a point that needs to be answered, but even if I didn't I will probably not have change your mind - which is okay. You seem to know what you are doing, Luke, and did indeed raise some important issues. Nevertheless I felt some points could be corrected, some may need to be clarified (Bjarne, where are you????), but others describe the normal risk of doing business in a global village.

[vladimir]

Luke, let me reply to your points:

>>Thanks, Vladimir, for your reply. You have helped me make my final decision... I will not be using JoomlaLMS, even though I would like to use it.
A: You are welcome. We did our best to answer your questions in a fast manner. It is up to you now to use our LMS or not.

>>See what the U.S. State Department says about Belarus:

http://belarus.usembassy.gov/mccorma...ion091107.html
http://belarus.usembassy.gov/mccorma...ion032207.html
A: IMHO, US State Department doesn’t like Belarus president, on the other hand a lot of corporations like Nokia, Microsoft,HP, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Asus etc… doing business, making investitions, having R/D centers in Belarus and they don’t care about political situation in Belarus, they care about their money/reputution/investitions which are well protected by state law in Belarus,Russia - that is why companies are doing business in Belarus and Russia and don't share thought of US State Department.

>>Again, trusted companies don't suppress this information. It is freely available. Why not post your contact details? That would build trust.
A:We didn’t posted our contact details because of a lot of calls DONE one time when our contact details were shared on ElearningForce.biz site. Might be in the near future we will provide phone contact for JoomlaLMS and ElearningForce.biz site again like we did for http://www.sharepointlms.com/contacts.
But again sharing contact information in our case is not the trust case(we are doing our best to improve support/response time(trust) via ticket system) – but a company policy for JoomlaLMS.com and ElearningForce.biz

>>You did not answer all the questions in my original post, Vladimir, and robertpb was a bit off-topic.
A: I am sorry if I didn’t answered all of your questions – I thought I and Den addressed all of them. Could you point out what questions are not replied?

Thank you for your commitment. Btw, could you expose to me what Elearning background you have, I think you are from US?

[bjarne]

Elearningforce Inc. is NOT a russian or Belarus based company!
I repeat:
Elearningforce Inc. is NOT a russian or Belarus based company!

We have a registered company at the Seychelles just like any other ordinary company so I don't see any problems it this and all company info is listed on www.elearningforce.biz.
Beside this registered company we have resellers and offices in some contries. One of the countries is Belarus. In UK we have Elearningforce Ltd. - that's all! No secrets involved at all.

If (God forbid) something happens with Elearningforce Inc. we will make sure that the source will be available for registered license holders. Fortunately we are growing - no, exploding in size and revenue. Maybe it should be mentioned that even Microsoft has approached us because of the new SharePointLMS and presently we are having meetings considering a business plan.

And still after many years in business we have a very good reputation all over - so what more do you want? If you don't wanna use our products then don't - it is of course up to you.

E-learning and our popular products will always be in our heart and we will proceed!

Thanks.

BM

[seanwhe]

OK now I've read this thread it has been food for thought that brought up some things I had not considered.

My concern is to do with license management. I could not give a dam where the company is.


If I understand, then I will have to keep removing users from the LMS in order to make optimal use of the licenses. That's a crazy thing.

1. Nobody wants to keep administration of that.

2. Historic data must be preserved

It seems that if I use J-LMS and I get 50 students to my first course, then I will only have 50 remaining seats. After just two such courses I will be upgrading license.

Now that would not be bad if the students keep subscribing to more courses, but reality is that some will and some will not. Some just want one course and not another. Now I must go and figure who does and who does not.

It seems to me that a more just and equitable solution would be that students can remain in the J-LMS forever and should be able to return and see what they did despite not being currently subscribed to a course.

It seems to me that the license limit should be based on the number of students currently subscribed to a course. So the system will all up to 100 people to be subscribed to courses. When 20 complete their first course, those license go back in to the available pool. However, the records for the 20 students that just completed the course will not have to touched and remain there.

If a school has a pool capacity of 100 people concurrently subscribed it makes sense. It makes no sense at all to have a penalty for users that once did a course.

Please advise whether the model I am proposing is possible or not?

Thanks

[den]

Such solution is not possible. You can mark your learners for course completion and hide all information about course completion (by editing html or CSS) and they will still have access to the learning materials.

[seanwhe]

What a shame. It seems to me that the J-LMS business model is seriously flawed.

It would be better to completely ignore the Joomla integration and go for a stand alone open source solution than place ones business at ransom like this license model does.

I can understand the need for you guys to make income, but to make income in this way just seems unethical. You are asking people to cripple their businesses and hug and kiss you for it.

I think it would be in your interests and those of your customers use a concurrent course subscription model. This way a school can have thousands of past students but needs seating for the capacity it current has or needs to facilitate. This model mirrors the real world.

I mean your local university does not chuck away your records when you have finished your degree. If they did how the hell would anyone be able to verify that certification was real.

I have to take this back to management, but I think you already know what they will answer.

[den]

Many paid LMSs have limiting by number of participants.
If we are saying about small business model, than 100 users will be enough for begining (your investment is a minimum).
So, if we are talking about schools or universities -> check our Buy section, you will find different license models for different number of users (license for unlimited number of users costs just 3x from normal).

[seanwhe]

It just says to contact you or a reseller.

Look we have no problem paying an ALF (Annual License Fee). But having a system that is not optimized on on how license is allocated is just shooting ones self in the foot.

You say the unlimited license is 299 *3 so we're looking at around 900 a year and then we will not be faced with this limitation?

[den]

Click 'Buy it' button near the Standart license and you will see much more details about price concept and i think you will have another questions ;)

[seanwhe]

So what you are saying is run the business un-optimzed or pay for unlimited license. Again, not the most ethical thing now is it.

The only model I can see that makes business sense for a company that wants to deliver real service for its clients is the concurrent subscribed capacity model.

With this model a business can scale with your product from the start. A business with 100 concurrent subscriptions is easy to achieve online if you are giving good service. We already have 2000 customers that in any one year may do 2 of our courses. They normally remain with us for 2-3 years doing one or two courses a year that range anywhere from a week to a month. In the interim, under your license model we will lose capacity. We currently need a capacity pool model. If we have more demand for seats, then we can add capacity by holding more classes over year, but sooner or later we will reach our cap. I mean there's only so may hours in a year. Then we will have to increase.

Makes more sense. I mean I would probably pay around $1500 for 100 concurrent seats or $15 per seat based on the model outlined. You guys would make more money and you would have clients adding as their business grow.

I am sure you are interested in having clients whose businesses can grow. It just makes sense. I think you will get more clients this way also. The LMS space in the Joomla arena is wide open, but with your current model I do think that you are exposing yourself to losing if another developer builds a similar system and uses a capacity business model.

[andreas]

I think the thoughts are worth considering. However, there may be reasons to stay with the current business modell. For instance I imagine that schools / educational institutions have a fairly set number of students who take all kinds of courses. That would be a different situation from the one Seanwhe described and might make more sense with the current model.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with Seanwhe that it should be possible to "clear" space without loosing data.

Here is a question/suggestion to both Den and Seanwhe....

Wouldn't it make sense to add an export function for certificates and "academic records"? A company or educational institution could keep the records "offline", freeing some licenses and probably making the system a little bit faster (and may be safer as well, since offline records are more difficult to manipulate).

What do you think?

[seanwhe]

The problem with Joomla LMS license is simple it encourages you to pay for what you are not using.

Student records should not be associated with school seating capacity. Simple as that. Nobody wants an extra task of administrating student records. Exporting, simply adds one more thing nobody wants to do. If you export, now what do you or the student do with it?

The model of license used on J-LMS is just not market related. It ignores the basic principle of what drives a business. SUPPLY and DEMAND.

Schools sometimes have more and sometimes fewer active enrollments to courses. That's the market and is part of the risk any business runs.

J-LMS wants you to pay an annual license fee that is 100% of the first license. That part also scratches me. I would proposed that ALF is dealt with on a 10% of the current concurrent seating capacity. So if I have 100 seating capacity in year 1 I pay $300. In year 2 I pay $30. This covers upgrades and support. When it comes to new full major version, then I pay full price again.

Another model is to pay a basic fee + seating fee. That way one can just top up when the school needs more.

Not that we are not talking about these guys getting less money. They most certainly deserve to get paid for their product and licensing. They've done a great job and provide a dignified service that does carry value.

[Ducati]

I just read this read because I didn't understand what one got for the extra money. Charging more money for more people to use the program that we market and and sell with our own money appears so unethical. I make my company grow and you get a cut and give me nothing in return. I would rather pay more money for a program that had less features from a company that didn't have such a poor pricing structure. Also, I see there is an additional charge for support. What exactly do you get for the money you are asking? A bunch of code with no support? Not worth it to most people. You guys might be awesome coders and engineers, but your marketing and business approach is seriously lacking. I find your approach in many areas to smell of a scam. Maybe your company is 100% legit, but you really need to work on your approach because I just get a very bad taste in my mouth from your marketing tactics and responses on this forum.

Sincerely,

C.J.

[vladimir]

To Seanwhe and Ducati: I really don't understand you and to my opinion you are in lack of understanding our price policy. Let me please explain it to you in 2 major issues i have found through your posts:

1) Seanwhe wrote: "Makes more sense. I mean I would probably pay around $1500 for 100 concurrent seats or $15 per seat based on the model outlined... "
A: Our pricing policy is more flexible as it gives you a possibility to start with 100 users for only 299 USD and not to pay 1500 initially! Unlimited amount of users will cost you only 1299 USD. Upgrade process is seamless and guys who want to save money can just delete old users.

2) Ducati wrote: Also, I see there is an additional charge for support. What exactly do you get for the money you are asking? A bunch of code with no support?
A:We offer our customers 3 levels support:

Normal level: free LMS update within 1 year, ticket system, forum (answer within 48 hours) - Free

Advanced level: free LMS update, ticket system (answer within 4 hours for inquiries posted on business hours GMT +2), $399 per month

Custom level: Free LMS update, ticket system (answer within 4 hours for inquiries posted on business hours GMT +2), $399 per month + (Skype, phone, chat - 60 USD/hour)

If you don't need any advanced support then you can always go with Normal level. Note that answers on forum are usually given within 24 hours.

Let me know if you have more questions.

[Ducati]

48 hours is not support when you are trying to run a business. 4 hours isn't even support. I can figure things out in 4 hours most of the time. Anything more than 10 minutes is going to hurt business. If I want phone support it is still $399 a month plus $60 an hour! All of these charges for support show that you do not have much faith in your software and want to try and ream people so that they can get it to work properly. I also fail to understand how you feel you can charge people more money for more users when it doesn't effect you. They aren't using your bandwidth. They market well, and you get more money? Doesn't seem fair.

Your price policy doesn't appear flexible, it appears crooked. I would rather pay $2,000 for unlimited users from a company that didn't ream people to get support. $60 an hour would be fine for phone support, but $399 a month just to have that as an option is criminal.

[vladimir]

Our support business model basically oriented into two customer groups:

1) Those customers who need immediate support better work with our local resellers so they get what they are looking for with the local pricing and local language.
2) Those customers who have their own administrators they don't experience much problems with the system and 24h support is truly ok for them.

BUT!

to ducaty:
1)
Sure. In some companies you can get support in 10-30 min and then they can spend ages dealing with the problem.... What is really important how quickly vendor will give you bug correction.
Have a look to MS. They don't get bug fixed in 1 day. We do that in most of the cases in 1!!!

Here are some words of our real customers. Have a look if they happy with the support quality :
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3829
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=705
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=573
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=609
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=467
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=390
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=210
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=350
http://www.joomlalms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=453


And check the time of the answers and time between problem was announced and fixed!!! Note -it is our FREE level!
I even wasn't searching long - about half answers have satisfied customers and are extra quick!

Hope this will help you to understand what is quality support rather then saying words about the service you've never tried before and you haven't try to see what people who use it say about it and understand our policy!

2)
Talking about unlimited users we can say that for middle size company or college (500 - 5000) even if they don't delete old users they get UNLIMITED LICENSE ONLY for 1299!
That is not a high price on the middle size companies LMS market. Such system as BB or eFront will cost you two - five times more! And functionality will be not much better then we have!
Where you can find commercial LMS which is ~30 -40 month of development for 299 at start integrated into company site?

3)
This forum was created to support JoomlaLMS community and provide them with FREE help. I hope, that you, Ducati, understand our support policy and find something that will suit you the best!

P.S. Further diskussion in this thread is stopped.