I just read the review of Xheo Licensing and Desaware Licensing in the Announcements forum. Actually, I'm not sure you could call it a review of Xheo as much as a slam, but whatever.
I'm a registered user of Xheo, and have used it to protect my (shipping) application since the Xheo V 1.x days. Other than that, I have no relation with Xheo or Paul whatsoever.
The article seemed to take Xheo more to task for it's perceived support weaknesses, rather than those with the licensing app itself. From my perspective, I can't see how the authors of this post could be more wrong. I've exchanged email with Paul on at least 6 occaisions, sometimes about bugs in his code, sometimes about dumb errors in mine. He's never been anything but extremely helpful and polite. The response time has always been incredibly fast, even during "off" hours. I can't but wonder how the authors of this piece could have received the response they report.
As far as the product itself; it's great. I currently use one of the default licensing templates, but I'm just about to create my own. The software is so comprehensive and customizable that you can do just about anything you want. I've deployed it in enterprise customer sites with my product (really, really large ones) and I've never had any issue with the product. It's that good.
Lastly, I looked at the Desaware product when I went to choose a licensing tool. It looked like a good product, but it was just shipping the 1.0 version. Xheo seemed more mature; more polished. I'm a registered owner of other Desaware products, so I *like* the company. But I just thought Xheo was the best of breed in licensing. Also, I have to admit the pricing was a factor. Desaware costs $1495. Xheo is much less, no matter what version you buy. You can even get Xheo source. So Desaware may be great, but at $1495 it is the most expensive tool I ever looked at, exceeding even things like Install$hield and Robohelp.
So, that's my view. As always, you should take a look at the tools and decide for yourself.
Chris
Sirana Software
I'm a registered user of Xheo, and have used it to protect my (shipping) application since the Xheo V 1.x days. Other than that, I have no relation with Xheo or Paul whatsoever.
The article seemed to take Xheo more to task for it's perceived support weaknesses, rather than those with the licensing app itself. From my perspective, I can't see how the authors of this post could be more wrong. I've exchanged email with Paul on at least 6 occaisions, sometimes about bugs in his code, sometimes about dumb errors in mine. He's never been anything but extremely helpful and polite. The response time has always been incredibly fast, even during "off" hours. I can't but wonder how the authors of this piece could have received the response they report.
As far as the product itself; it's great. I currently use one of the default licensing templates, but I'm just about to create my own. The software is so comprehensive and customizable that you can do just about anything you want. I've deployed it in enterprise customer sites with my product (really, really large ones) and I've never had any issue with the product. It's that good.
Lastly, I looked at the Desaware product when I went to choose a licensing tool. It looked like a good product, but it was just shipping the 1.0 version. Xheo seemed more mature; more polished. I'm a registered owner of other Desaware products, so I *like* the company. But I just thought Xheo was the best of breed in licensing. Also, I have to admit the pricing was a factor. Desaware costs $1495. Xheo is much less, no matter what version you buy. You can even get Xheo source. So Desaware may be great, but at $1495 it is the most expensive tool I ever looked at, exceeding even things like Install$hield and Robohelp.
So, that's my view. As always, you should take a look at the tools and decide for yourself.
Chris
Sirana Software