Movable Type $3.0 Price Change
Six Apart, reacting to substantial backlash about its announced pricing and usage policies for version 3.0 of Movable Type, have revised their prices and policies. Unfortunately, it appears to be too little, too late.
Steven Taylor, for one, is unimpresed:
I remain unsure as to whether I am going to just stick with the current version of MT or migrate to ExpressEngine or WordPress.
Astute observers will note that upgrading to Movable Type 3.0 wasn’t among the options under consideration. Based on what I’ve read so far, my plan is to stick with Movable Type 2.661 for now while I wait for WordPress to get better. I haven’t read much about ExpressEngine that makes it sound worth moving to.
I’m also unimpressed. Though the pricing is better than it was, Expression Engine is better bang for the buck.
Then there’s WordPress and Drupal and Geeklog and all the other GPL software for free.
I switched to WP about 2 weeks ago and remain very happy. It seams to be saving me about 10% – 25% on bandwidth because rebuilds are easier.
I think the new Movable Type pricing isn’t terribly bad, but they should have really announced this a few weeks ago. People who were angry enough to switch have already done so, and it’s the people who are willing to try new things who Six Apart needs to keep the hype up.
Having said that, I’ve been using WordPress now for a few weeks, and I like it for the most part. I like the fact that there is ongoing development for it, and the instant rebuilds. The instant rebuilds are just wonderful. However, it is still software that the user one needs to “hack about”. For example, I’m having some ping/trackback issues, so I need to diagnose those.
I am sticking with MT and in the process of upgrading to MT 3. I strongly feel that Six Apart has a vision for the product and will be making vast improvements to the product. They have been a little slow coming out of the starting blocks but I very much prefer having a team of dedicated paid programmers who have a vision developing the product. Over the years I have always found that commercial products have a way of out pacing other packages.
I think the last thing Six Apart wanted to do was be hasty about any new pricing changes. It’s what got them into trouble last time, after all.
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