New ‘Infinity’ Licensing Policies

Why is Liveware taking this new approach to licensing? ‘Infinity’ is a vast change in licensing our flagship R&R product line. For many, many years – including the time prior to 2000 that R&R was released by other publishers – licensees had to pay to upgrade from one version to the next. We have found that too many of our loyal users would wait to upgrade to newer versions, since they would feel that they would simply have to pay again for the next upgrade.

We have decided that everyone will be better served by eliminating the question of whether and when to upgrade from prior R&R versions. We always want ALL of our loyal users to have the advantage of the latest R&R release, without considering the expense associated with upgrading one, ten or even hundreds of licenses. Therefore, beginning with the ‘Infinity’ release, all future updates to R&R ReportWorks will be freely available for download on our web site. In effect, when you purchase ‘Infinity’ you never have to pay to upgrade the software again!!

We believe that the large number of licensees with older versions will now make the move to ‘Infinity’. We also are confident that parties looking for reporting software will view R&R ReportWorks more favorably than competitive products, which often have draconian or unfair licensing and upgrade policies.

How the new licensing works

Licensees purchasing ‘Infinity’ will receive a serial number that begins ‘012’ – for version 12 – which will entitle them to download those updates from our web site, install, and use them the same as their base R&R license. Those version 12 license numbers are REQUIRED for ‘Infinity’ updates to work correctly; do not attempt to download and install the updates without a version 12 serial number.

Other licensing policies still apply. The Report Designer module, labeled version 12.0 in the first ‘Infinity’ release, is still licensed based on concurrent use either on individual workstations or shared across a network. That is, you need a serialized license for each workstation where the R&R ReportWorks executable programs (RRW.EXE / RSW.EXE) are installed, and a separate serial number on a multi-user network installation for each workstation that will use those programs concurrently. (R&R will meter usage based on locking and unlocking license serial numbers shared over a network.)

All other modules, including Rapid Runner, Runtime, Data Dictionary Editor, Report Librarian and Report Converter, are all freely available with no usage limitations within the licensee’s organization. Licensees are also free to distribute Runtime components to third parties without restriction (except that the parties distributing those components must, themselves, have at least one full R&R license for that version), but distribution of Rapid Runner does require a separate license.

Upgrading to ‘Infinity’ from prior versions and pricing

The prices for a new single-, five- or ten-user license are still the same for ‘Infinity’ as for recent R&R versions (US$600, $2400, $4000, respectively). Each license upgrade to ‘Infinity’ from any prior R&R version is $500. Each concurrent Report Designer license must be upgraded from its prior version to ‘Infinity’. Volume discounts are available; call a Liveware representative for a quote.

Licensees who joined R&R Premiere Club at any time will receive ‘Infinity’ automatically and at no charge. We will be sending Premiere Club members a notice of where to go to download the first ‘Infinity’ release and to request their version 12 serial number. Similarly, anyone who purchased SP05 directly from Liveware on or after December 1, 2005 will receive a similar notice from us to receive the same benefits as Premiere Club members.

Reseller Instructions

As with prior upgrade releases, we will honor an item-for-item and dollar-for-dollar swap of unsold licenses you have in stock. Contact Liveware as soon as possible and list the SP05 serial numbers you have in stock. We will issue replacement serial numbers and ship you replacement stock. If you need to sell an SP05 license you have reported to Liveware for replacement, do so and give the purchaser a version 12 replacement serial number from the list we provide. They will be able to download the ‘Infinity’ upgrade directly from our web site.

For resellers who distribute R&R ReportWorks and/or R&R Report Writer in conjunction with their own software, we welcome you to contact us regarding upgrading all of your end-users to ‘Infinity’ under special arrangements, so they do not have to do so individually at a higher cost. By moving all of your end-users to ‘Infinity’, you will never again have to be concerned about supporting multiple prior versions or upgrading those licensees ever again.

Reseller discounts remain the same for ‘Infinity’ as for prior versions. Special contractual arrangement for distribution of prior R&R versions are not affected by ‘Infinity’ licensing.

Impact on other Liveware product’s licenses

The free update licensing also applies for R&R ReportWorks Lite. Updates will be posted on our web site for free download. You will have to have a valid ‘Lite’ license (although there are no serial numbers for ‘Lite’ for the updates to work.

PDFeBurst is not included in the free update policy. Upgrade versions’ pricing and licensing rules will vary.

RattleRR, R&R’s web-based report distribution program, is also not currently subject to free upgrades. We will be renaming it to ‘R&R WebReports’ upon our next release, scheduled for later this year. Again, pricing and licensing rules will vary.