This is an excerpt from Empeg's web site:

"Upgrades are posted regularly to our web site and are almost always free of charge"

Almost always? Does this mean that Empeg plans to charge for certain upgrades, or begin charging for them in the future?

Just curious...

Past history would suggest most, if not all, future software upgrades will be free. I do recall the Empeg guys making some mention of the possibility that software upgrades employing the licensing of new technology (for which Empeg must pay a licensing fee) might be "shared" with customers in the form of an upgrade fee.

This is only fair--don't you think?

Krampster
Mark 1: #354 10 gig/green
Mark 2: #155 36 gig/red

Of course that's fair... and believe me, so far Empeg has been very cool with all of their policies, but I'm just hoping that as things get bigger and the train starts moving faster, that they keep the same philosophy. I guess the motivation behind my post was that I just dropped $1500 for my Mark II, and I'm hoping that I don't have to pay later for software upgrades unless it's a feature I really want/need...

Which brings up another question.. Are these licensed features going to be sold as plug-ins, add-ons, or patches that can be purchased separately from the rest of the player software? Like, what if I don't want WMA support (I'm assuming that will cost some money for licensing.) Shouldn't I be able to get new software upgrades without WMA and not have to pay for it? Plug-ins would seem to be the way to go..

Well, WMA is going to be a free upgrade, and for the forseeable future, I think that all their software upgrades will be free. The only reason the word "almost" is on the page is just as a loophole in case things change.

I don't expect that they'll "suddenly start charging" for upgrades. If anything, a fee-based add-on would be some kind of a software plug-in, and it would only happen that way if there was some technology that required a per-user license to be paid back to the licensor.

So I don't think you have to worry about paying for your upgrades.

___________
Tony Fabris

We have no plans to charge for any upgrades, but as Tony said, we can't rule it out and then later change our minds if something really expensive comes along.

The next release (1.1) has WMA for which we have had to pay a licence, and we have also had to pay for new MP3 and WAV codecs, but this cost has been absorbed by empeg.

The next major release after that is likely to be 2.0 with voice recognition, for which we face an expensive licence, however this will also be absorbed by empeg with no additional cost to our clients.

Regards

Rob

Okay, I take back all reservations I had about you guys -- those are two great features, and the fact that you're adding them in at no extra cost is fantastic. I guess I was just suffering from post-purchase stress disorder.

This is very good news. You guys are back on my christmas card list!

-Doug
(Mk2-12G-Blue)

You took us off your christmas card list???

What is the big advantage of WMA? I know ive asked this question before, but is it worth the cost of the licence?

Sean

Hey... everyone knows that Christmas is an American holiday. Why would we send cards overseas for a holiday that's not celebrated over there? Microsoft bought Christmas back in 98, right after Windows 95 was released. (Somehow, that's an oxymoron, but I can't figure out how. LOL!) Now it's proprietary to America...

George

I hope Christmas Millenium Edition doesn't have many bugs.

Alex Lear

Some people think it sounds better at lower bitrates.

The big advantage as I see it is that many online music vendors are going to ship tracks in WMA format, so you could need support for it if you want to buy music from the net.

Rob

this will also be absorbed by empeg with no additional cost to our clients.

What the???

Proof once again that empeg is the only car player company to deal with.

Murray 06000047
____________________