Apologees for being uninformed
Sunday, June 8th, 2008A few days ago Ben Forta posted, on his blog, an article about the costs of ColdFusion. Well, I read it and I commented on it based on a lack of research on the pricing of other technologies specifically .NET and I apologize. A guy named David posted after I did and was talking about the pricing for .NET. After looking around at all the prerequisites needed to run a Windows .NET environment I realized that running a .NET environment is pretty expensive as well.
| Product Offering | U.S. Price* | Description |
|
Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition |
$999 |
Available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Includes 5 CALs (User or Device, chosen after purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition |
$1,199 |
Available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Includes 10 CALs (User or Device, chosen after purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition |
$3,999 |
Available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Includes 25 CALs (User or Device, chosen after purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition |
$2,999 |
Available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. |
|
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, 32-bit version |
$399 Open NL |
Web Server product, no CALs required. Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, is not available in all channels. Open NL estimated price is $399. Contact your local System Builder, OEM, or reseller for actual prices or for more information on how to purchase. |
| Client Access Licenses (Please refer to the note below for CAL information on Windows Server 2003 R2) | U.S. Price* | Description |
|
Windows Server 2003, Client Access License 5-pack |
$199 |
5 additional Windows Server 2003 CALs (User or Device, chosen at time of purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003, Client Access License 20-pack |
$799 |
20 additional Windows Server 2003 CALs (User or Device, chosen at time of purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003, TS Client Access License 5-pack |
$749 |
5 additional Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server (TS) CALs (User or Device, chosen at time of purchase) |
|
Windows Server 2003, TS Client Access License 20-pack |
$2,979 |
20 additional Windows Server 2003 TS CALs (User or Device, chosen at time of purchase) |
| Connectors | U.S. Price* | Description |
|
Windows Server 2003, External Connector License |
$1,999*** |
Optional additional server license for External Users accessing Windows Server 2003 software |
|
Windows Server 2003, Terminal Server External Connector License |
$7,999*** |
Optional additional server license for External Users accessing Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server |
| Product | Buy | Renew |
| Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition with MSDN Premium Subscription | $2,499 | $1,999 |
| Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition with MSDN Professional Subscription | $1,199 | $799 |
Also, now that I think about it, people say that ColdFusion is not learned by new programmers and I think that Adobe should do something about that with the Universities. It’s completely free to learn CF with CFEclipse and the developers version of CF server. The problem is that most students are learning C# and VB in school and when they come out they further saturate the .NET job market. That’s why it’s so hard to find CF developers, because the new brood aren’t picking it up until later in life.
I love ColdFusion, and I have been successful in converting other developers away from .NET in the past. The biggest reason they move to CF is the learning curve and the ease of development. I have met some developers who don’t know some of the tricks in HTML, Javascript, and CSS because VS does a lot of it for them. Anyway, I retract my comment in Ben’s blog…ColdFusion is better priced than .NET, at least according to the pricing above.
