FREE Upgrade Program Begins
October 6th, 2009 by Egor MalyshevGreat news, Everyone! We’re very happy to inform you all, that in spirit of a good old tradition (established around three years ago), everyone who buys or upgrades to IntelliJ IDEA 8 after October 1st 2009, is entitled to a FREE copy of IntelliJ IDEA 9 (Maia), which is scheduled for release in November 2009.
Develop with pleasure!
Tags: Maia
October 6th, 2009 at 8:05 am
>> first decade of November 2009
Hmmm… you mean first week, surely.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Or at least first decameron
October 6th, 2009 at 8:29 am
“Decade” means 10 or 10 units. Not necessarily 10 years although that is its most frequent use. So that sentence simply means within the first 10 days of November.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
This is upsetting. Last year, IDEA 8, which was released November 6, 2008, was offered for free for those who’d purchased a license for IDEA 7 on or after _August 22, 2008_. This year, the cutoff date was moved up over a month, to October 1. Why?
This affects me since I bought my license on September 21. While I realize there was no guarantee of the cutoff date being similar to last year’s, I expected it to be similar. If I’d known, I would have gone back to Eclipse for ten days, rather than be expected to pay an upgrade fee for a product I’ve only just bought. As it is, I’ve been using the Maia EAP for pretty much the duration of my IDEA use, so I have no interest in version 8, the version I technically bought. I only bought when I did because my evaulation license (for EAP, too, apparently) expired on September 22.
Since I’ve been using v9 the whole time, I’m faced with the decision of upgrading my month-old license next month, or downgrading to v8, neither of which I consider an acceptable resolution.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Unfortunately, whenever we start the program, there always are people who have bought a license a couple of days before, and so are feeling disappointed. We understand them, but it is impossible to avoid this situation.
As for the time frame, we usually start our free upgrade program about 6 to 8 weeks before the estimated launch of the new version. Last year’s estimation was for the beginning of October, while this year we schedule it for November.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I understand that there needs to be a cut off, and thanks for the explanation of how you set the free upgrade cutoff. Unfortunately, knowing that the date will be 6-8 weeks before the release doesn’t help unless the release timeframe has been publicized.
Given the lack of even a pro-rated upgrade fee or people who bought just days before the free upgrade cutoff, I feel somewhat insulted as a customer, but perhaps more so as an early adopter, having been an active user of the Maia EAP, and having reported various errors and bugs, in the hopes of making the product better for its eventual release. Perhaps in the future your pricing structure can include incentives for those who have participated in the wide-scale testing that’s inherent in using an EAP and reporting issues, or provide a pro-rated upgrade fee based on how long before the cutoff point one has bought his license. Maybe you’re doing well enough that you don’t need to entice upgraders, but it would be a nice nod toward the active and fervent community that has, in no small part, engendered your success.
I know I want 9.0, it being the environment that I’ve been using, but I can’t justify sending JetBrains any more of my money at this point. Maybe when 10.0 drops.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Ian, not trying to be a jerk, but I also can’t “justify” upgrading to 9 (in the terms of explaining it to my wife), but that won’t stop me!
October 8th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Ian, I don’t think you have any right to be mad at JetBrains. You could have waited until they announced the upgrade program. And you didn’t even have to go back to Eclipse, you could have just kept using the Maia EAPs, each one reset the 30-day trial period. That’s what I did, so now I have my license.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:21 am
If I buy the IDEA-8 license today and apply it to the IDEA-9 EAP, will the license automatically be propagated when I upgrade to IDEA-9 GA?
October 9th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Viraf, yes, if you buy an IDEA-8 license now, it automatically grants you a free upgrade to IDEA-9 when it goes GA. You also can run EAP builds even without IDEA-8 license, because they come with their own one, valid for 30 days and prolonged with every new EAP, though expiring at the moment of IDEA-9 GA release.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
No, Matt, I’d been using the EAPs all along. It told me my license had expired and then IDEA quit. Perhaps I could have tried uninstalling and all that in an attempt to game the system, but I’d planned to buy it all along and thought I’d fall within the upgrade period, based on last year’s announcement.
It’s okay, I’ll consider paying for an upgrade when 10 comes out if it looks compelling enough. My first exposure to IDEA as a corporate license at a former employer in the 5.5 days, and even that old version did nearly everything I’ll ever need and more.