Apr 01 2003

Hosting FlashCom data applications has become

Published by at 10:40 under Wayback Archive

Hosting FlashCom data applications has become cheaper since it’s new release. I am surprised that this has not been mentioned on any of the flash blogs yet. The reason why I say that hosting data applications on your Flash Communication Server MX 1.5 is cheaper, is the fact that we changed the license model significantly. You can now have more users connected to your server for the same money (compared to Flash Communication Server MX1).

I think this is exactly what lots of developers have been asking for. One of the most heard complaints about the old license model was that it was not suited well enough for data only applications like chat engines or multiuser games (using only a littlebit bandwidth, but requires relatively more simultaneous users) that do not use streaming video or audio. For such applications the allowed number or simultaneous connections was too low, or the upgrade to the professional server was too expensive for only just a chat engine.

Personally have’ve heard lots of customers complaining about this, because from a technical point of view using FlashCom for such applications is more attractive than using for example Java or socket servers. Macromedia has tried to solve this issue with the MX1.5 license model, as you can read on the Pricing and Editions page. The personal edition now can handle up to 50 connections (was 10) and the professional edition now can handle up to 2500 connections (was 500), pricing hasn’t changed for these servers. Also not that there now is a free developer edition of the server!

Take this real world example, which shows why it is cheaper for such applications:

You want to build a multiuser game for your website and expect between 20 and 30 users to be connected to the application at the same time. With the old license model you had to stack 3 personal editions to be able to handle this number of users. So you would end up paying 3*499=$1497 for your server licenses. Now, with the new license model, you only need one single personal license which costs you $499. I think that makes a big difference!

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