Woah, I thought the forums were gone on moveabletype’s website. They sort of are. Can you find the link? I have not been able to yet.. I know that the forums are there because I am on them right now. For new users, it would not be so simple. Oh, there it is, I found it. That is, honestly, what troubled me the most about all of this.
The community, any way you cut it, has been moved to the back seat of the bus now for Six Apart.
Wondering what I am talking about? Read this:
http://www.sixapart.com/corner/archive/2004/05/its_about_time.shtml
I can’t argue with them on their decision to take the free community support and do something with it. That’s what business is good at and is half the reason we have so many innovative products out there. On the other hand, some companies PAY for R&D, which is what the community has been doing for Six Apart for a good long time. For free.
I can’t argue with their decision to make money on a great product. Hey, they deserve to make a tonne of money off of this software. However, their approach seems a bit wacky.
What this is.. is not an upgrade. It is a rebrand. New logo, new messaging. Moveable Type has shiner packaging and so they think it is worth more [than it was]. Which I agree with. It does look better. Is it worth more? It’s always been worth quite a bit, but they’re charging more for it than an iPod at the highest end. This price point is doom. The limitations are doom. The disappearance of community is doom. Basically this is an optics disaster in one of the most listened to and connected communities on the planet.
I hope their 26 employees are Public Relations wrecking balls and not programmers so that they can break through the walls they’ve put up for themselves.
By the way, if I was to continue running and upgrading moveabletype, the cost would be $206 CAD with no functional benefits. Yeah right.
Yeah. So what else is there for people to use? You can still use Moveable Type for free if you want. Once you register with them, you can download good old 2.661. Probably for a limited time. The new one is free but they don’t offer any support for it. And like I said, the forums .. well, I don’t even know if you can find them any more unless you already happen to know where they are. Weak sauce, weak sauce.
So anyways, we still got something out of the whole deal. But emotionally I consider the deal to be over. I may be interested in them from a business angle, but Moveable Type doesn’t do everything that I would need CMS to do, so that’s unlikely. In that regard, Moveable Type is competitively priced, but functionally falls short of other solutions.