by john on Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:28 pm
Hello-
We decided to provide Phantom products for free to encourage use of the Phantom automation language. Part of our mission is to provide quality automation at an affordable cost. When Phantom was originally developed, it was as an alternative to the expensive automation tools that existed at the time. The DOS version was the original back in 1999, and it was free. We feel that Phantom Test Driver and Phantom Sidekick both have a lot to offer the automation community, and decided to return to our roots and provide them for free.
Details are not finalized, but we are considering also making the the products open source. There has been considerable interest in an open source automation tool like Phantom. Being open source will, in the long run, make Phantom better and more feature rich. This is not final, but under discussion. If you or anyone else has any feedback on this option, we would love to hear it.
As for support, we plan to continue to provide basic support via the forum and e-mail. We also plan to offer a premium support option for Phantom package development or assistance on more complex Phantom automation projects. Ideally, we would like users to contribute to the forum more to assist other users. Free versions of PTD and Sidekick should increase this user base.
We really think this plan will be better for Phantom in the long run. If you have any thoughts or feedback, please let us know!
-John