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 Origin high prices and proposed "Origin Elements"

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
St-Ranger Posted - 12/01/2011 : 8:41:19 PM

Dear Origin Management Team:

I would like to share with you my thoughts on Origin its prices and overall "Origin experience".

1. Origin pricing

Origin program is rather expensive (even with academic pricing).
Compare it to the competitors' programs. E.g., it is 4-5 times more expensive than Kaleidagraph http://www.synergy.com/downloads/order_acad.pdf.
In addition to that, there was a recent price increase ($50 a copy), with 1 year of upgrades is included.

What if I don't need those upgrades? What if I prefer to lock in on a particular version for the duration of a project, - to avoid various incompatibility issues? Why are they pushed up my throat, so that I have to pay for them no matter what?

2. Frustrations with Origin website, Origin Viewer - "Origin Experience"

In the recent time, I've be rather frustrated with the experience related to use of Origin. (I suspect that in some way it reflects on the attitude of OriginLab toward users.)

One of the examples of that is discussed in my previous thread - about Origin Viewer (the facts that there is no "portable" version that doesn't require that superfluous installation, and that the FAQ is vague about that, and suggests to download and install/unpack the package to see information in the README file.)

Yet another example is the fact that the academic (and other) prices are not easily available on the website. There is one person, Holy (albeit very friendly and helpful) who can answer those questions. Why waste everybody's time and energy, while this information can be provided on the website?

One more example is forum ergonomics (and broken functionality). Look at the message writing page: there is a lot of empty space at the top of the page, so that one needs to scroll the page down to see the entire submission window. The header of the page can be "compacted".
Also, despite the fact that I am logged in, there is still a note at the top (taking up the space!):
quote:
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To illustrate these points, I thought I'd upload the marked screenshot. So, I tried to use the button "insert image". It opens a pop-up windows: http://originlab.com/www/support/forum_image_upload.aspx?S=F
So, I chose a file, clicked "Upload", and nothing happened. Presumably it did upload it (where?) - as the second attempt to upload the same file gave an error: such a file already exists. But it is unclear how to display it in the forum. The "Help" (Format Mode) for "Insert Image" button actually offers two lines:
"Image Tag Inserts an image into the post.
USE: [img ]http://www.anywhere.com/image.gif[/img ]"
Well, it doesn't.

So, as an alternative, I downloaded the image to your ftp site: ftp://anonymous@ftp.originlab.com/incoming/OriginForum-NotErgomonic.jpg, but it is not visible at the moment. (Most likely, the ftp server sets such permissions for uploaded files to prevent unauthorized file sharing).

These are just a few examples of frustrating things about "Origin experience".
And there are many small details like this that add up.

3. Personal thoughts and considerations.

I've been using and proposing Origin to colleagues in different US universities for well over 10 years, as I find it being a convenient product
But the frustration from the lack of thinking about users, combined with high prices make me thinking about switching to less expensive alternatives.

4. What can be improved for "Origin Experience"

So, what can be done to make it more attractive and accessible, for all users, and especially for academic users like myself?

You can improve the website, FAQ and the freebie tools, - all what contributes to the Origin Experience.
That's obvious.
(Please, just don't follow the trend of the day, and don't make heavy flash-based pages, - keep the website design simple (KISS), but properly working and more ergonomic.)


5. What about prices? - Proposed "Origin Elements" - lighter package.

But what can be done about the prices? Make them more affordable!

I understand that Origin needs to make money and prosper. But the high prices limit the userbase growth, especially among university users.
Thinking about that, I realized that my students and I essentially do not use any new features introduced after v.6.x, except for two: long names for the windows and a better UI for choosing/modifying plot properties.
We do use the plotting capabilities, and the simplest analyses (linear/polynomial fitting, functional subtraction), but not all the reach set of sophisticated data analysis tools.

Hence, I propose the following idea:
Now, that Origin grew in such a Behemoth with a variety of complicated analyses tools, I encourage OriginLab to consider releasing a lighter version of the package in a way similar to how Adobe created Adobe Elements from Adobe Photoshop. Such a package, while being compatible with Origin in the file format, would provide a smaller set of functionality at a moderate price (~$100-200 range per academic license).

I hope you will read all these suggestions carefully and make changes for both "Origin Experience" and pricing policies.

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