In regards to costs of build in association to the cloud based service. The extra ‘500’ would likely not compensate for having to write code for all the different platforms (windows (different flavors)), apple, Linux, etc. Then there is ongoing technical support across platforms. The cloud based service eliminates those hidden costs. It is such a brilliant model imho. Yes I would rather have everything under one roof but I’m very excited to know software upgrades and downgrades when needed will be done remotely and my machine will just work. That is the theory in essence.
Additionally the extra $500 would be needed for all versions of the GF. The Glowforge basic for U.S. customers was $1995. $25% increase over the price point the company was shooting for.
Thank you Benwalker that link was very helpful and i appreciate it truly do. But please don’t confuse applications with Data a translation application is a very common thing. Perhaps you are familiar with Java one application universal platform access and use… but we are beleaguering the point.
Thank you all for your input on this thread i think we have brought up some great points and discussed several important things i guess i only hope that a representative from GlowForge will say something and put these questions to rest. Again all thank you again.
I appreciate the open exchange of ideas as well. I think the main cost savings will be the workforce and training required to support end users. It has not been revealed as of yet what protocol is going to be used for communication between the servers and the machines. But from the beginning Dan has promised to open source that software as a failsafe. Once that is in the wild there will be a rush to customize it to do away with all these concerns. I’m not sure which direction I will go but will retain a copy for future use. I’m not going to be designing things that need patent protection but I understand that concern completely. The Glowforge is designed to blend into a home setting; to just work when needed invisible to the how it works. That is my take on it. It’s the iPhone to the tinkerers.