Hello, this is kind of a broad product roadmap question. And probably a good opportunity for discussion.
At this point, and more so moving forward, mobile phones are critical to day-to-day operations. And every person in most plants has a smartphone. The Tulip platform is extremely conducive to the development of mobile applications to supplement more complex tablet or computer-based apps. Mobile apps can be developed for viewing reports or tables, taking pictures, updating order statuses, communicating across the plant, and a lot more. However, the Tulip pricing model is license-based and effectively priced per device. This makes it pretty much impossible for businesses to allow employees to use their personal phones with Tulip apps.
Is there a long-term plan or expectation with how this might be mitigated in the future?
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Tulip prices by Active Interface. The full definition is in our ToS but TL;DR - an active interface is any physical device (table, touchscreen, wearable or phone) that runs Tulip apps.
Tulip doesn’t place any restrictions on what devices can be used to run these apps (your IT department might). Our only requirement is that the device has access to the internet. Our goal is to make Tulip easy to use where you need it while providing maximum flexibility to our customers. If your company has work provided cell phones that you want to run Tulip on, you can. If you want to run Tulip on your personal cell phone, you can. If you want to provision devices exclusively to run Tulip, no problem… or any combination thereof. Subscription is based on the total number of Active Interfaces and many customer do run apps on their cell phones. It’s worth noting that the form factor of the interface doesn’t restrict the number, type or functionality of the apps that can be run on the device.
At this point, there is no plan to offer different pricing for mobile interfaces vs tablet or touchscreen interfaces.`
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@ErikMirandette I appreciate the thorough response. Seems like the team has thought this through for now. Thanks.