With the newlicensing of Domino Designer in Notes/Domino 8.5.1, there have been a lot of questions.
Ed Brill answered most of them the other day. As we are using the Domino Express license where I work, I put together a short executive summary for my managers, and I wanted to share it here.
- Domino Designer 8.5.1 can be used for free (no license needed) to develop local applications.
- In order to deploy applications to a Domino Enterprise Server (regular license or Express, does not matter), an Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) is needed. The Messaging only CAL can not be used, nor can the Collaboration Express license.
- Any developer in a Domino Collaboration Express environment need (in addition to the Express license) an Enterprise CAL in order to use Domino Designer. The cost is $159. The Express license is $142. Both prices areaccording to Ed Brill.
- A license for Domino Designer used to be $864, so it is still a substantial cost reduction,$705 to be precise.
- For a customer using the cheaper per-seat and no serverchargeDomino Express license, the cost savings will still be large, even if Designer technically not is free in that environment.
- Previous versions of Domino Designer are not free. Only 8.5.1 and later.
In my personal opinion, I think IBM should make all versions of Designer free. No extra license needed to deploy applications on any servers. Each developer will still need either an Enterprise CAL or a Domino Collaboration Express license anyway.
I hope this is a beginning of getting Domino Designer out there, and making developers aware of the tool. I can see a need for plenty of good books/wikis/reference material for new developers, though. I still believe in books. You can read them in the bathroom, in bed, on a flight (even during take-off and landing). Revisit the R6 Developer Redbook and publish a new version of it, updated for Designer 8.5.1…