2010 Aurora Status / DMX beta

Ok...

Everyone has been waiting for the August 30 announcement.  Is it good or is it bad?

The original business plan for Aurora required a growing market and a 2 year version life cycle.  In other words, version 1 would release in Sep. 2008, version 2 in Sep. 2010, version 3 in Sep. 2012, etc.  Neither of these requirements turned out to be the case.

1. The market has been shrinking instead of growing since 2008.  In part, the growth rate of the hobby has slowed (due to economic influences).  Also, the hobby has recently been returning to its DIY roots.  Several open-source and/or freeware software projects have emerged and these have greatly impacted the Aurora sales figures.

2. Despite being the best option for properly supporting those who purchased version 1, extending the life of version 1 past its original life cycle completely removed a planned source of upgrade sales in late 2009.  The expected boost in sales from the improved reputation never surfaced, mostly due to the sequence of problems and delays with the release killing the sales that were supposed to flow from extending the life of version 1.

When it was clear that sales had hit an all-time low that was beyond unsustainable (3 sales from January 2010 to May 2010), we took the risk of temporarily switching the product to freeware.  The hope was to increase interest in Aurora and to raise the demo download figures so as to improve the situation for when development would resume in September.  We would resume normal pricing with some future update and would do so with a built in set of new customers eager to now pay for the software (DMX was the key here).  This was a risky move... and it failed.  The market took the move to be a sign that Aurora was simply dead.  By going freeware, download figures went down instead of up.  In fact, downloads of Aurora nearly ceased altogether. 

So bad has the impact been that I can not afford to put up my own light show this year.  "Lights On Logan" will be dark this Christmas.

From the May announcement through this August 30 announcement I monitored the market and its reaction to the freeware release.  I determined that resuming extended development of version 1 as a commercial product is simply unsustainable. 

The calculations for version 2 were not much better.  I was looking at a maximum of 200 sales over a 1 year initial development plus 2 year life cycle release period.  After 3 years of expenses, trade shows, etc. there was absolutely nothing left.  Not only would I not make any money on Aurora 2, I would be lucky to not lose money.

I also attempted to consider unconventional business models for Aurora (for example, an ad supported application where vendors could display ads within an ad pane in the sequencer).  Finding horizontal markets to venture into (entertainment industry) was also considered.  Unfortunately, none of these worked out either.

So... here is the deal...

1. Aurora is on hiatus for the next 6 months while I pursue an income.  I have resumed consulting work (I'm presently beginning work on a 6 month QC project).  Every 6 months I will be revisiting the figures to determine if the market is any better than it is today.  If the situation improves, then Aurora will resume as a commercial product.  Until then, Aurora remains a freeware "hobby project".  Do not expect any official updates to Aurora this season (but there is an unofficial release... more on that in a moment).

2. I fully intend to have my "Lights On Logan" light show back up in Christmas 2011, and I will not be using software other than Aurora to run it!  My 2011 plans are to be 100% DMX, so you can fully expect an official DMX Aurora in 2011.

3. There is an unofficial DMX Aurora available today!  Last season the beta testers and I ran DMX in our shows with a very early beta testing release that had DMX support.  Since a release including this functionality has not been completed in 2010, we are making the beta release available on a private basis to anyone who will be using DMX this season.  Due to its beta nature, this early beta is limited to a single DMX universe and requires a few hoops to jump through to install.  However, it does work and has been proven in the field.  Please private message myself or a beta tester if you need access to this "unofficial release".

I wish I had better news... but that is it for now.


Edited by LightsOnLogan - 30 Aug 2010 at 11:18am

Does this version have any other updates beside DMX? The cut and paste for example...

I thought you guys had been working on this at the same time. Ahh man.....this is killing me.

 I have to add 5 more boxes in my display and I only have 2 cars. When I do a cut and paste, I have time to do one oil change. I guess I'll be able to start myself an oil changing service!

BigDPS,

You might want to private message deweycooter.  He has a small app that interfaces with the Aurora data DLL to do complete channel copies, sequence merges, etc.

bummer

Error Your Private Message "app", has not been sent!

deweycooter has exceeded the maximum number of Private Messages they are allowed to receive.