Tarantella Readies Upgrade, Modular Pricing Scheme

With the new release, Tarantella also plans to introduce a modular pricing structure for its server-based application delivery platform. The modular approach will reduce the initial investment required to purchase Tarantella software to a starting point of $100 per user, down from about $400, said Doug Michels, CEO of Tarantella, based here.

"We're adjusting the pricing so you can buy just the capabilities you want," Michels said. "It allows our customers and resellers to have a lot of flexibility in the way they implement our product."

Under the new pricing model, Tarantella will offer customers an option to buy separate Enterprise 3 components based on the application platforms they need to Web-enable. It also will separate security and high-end features such as portal integration and advanced load balancing, Michels said.

"It really allows us to go head-to-head in the Microsoft Terminal Services market and Citrix [Systems market much more aggressively," said Doug Tjaden, president of Tridex Systems, an Englewood, Colo.-based solution provider.

In addition to supporting modular pricing, version 3.3 increases the number of users that can be supported on a single Linux system to more than 1,000 from 400, Michels said.

The new version also adds support for Sun Microsystems' Sun ONE Portal Server 6.0, as well as operating systems including UnitedLinux 1.0, Sun Linux 5 and Solaris 9, RedHat 8 and IBM AIX 5.1, he said.

With the modular licensing option, solution providers can offer Tarantella implementations customized to each user's needs, Michels said. Some users might only require access to Windows applications, while others might need access to Windows, Unix and Linux applications, he added.

"We have other customers that are Unix-only or Linux-only, so they didn't need Windows functionality and didn't want to pay for it," Michels said.

For 100 users, a Windows-only license would cost $100 per user, while a license for Windows, Unix and security features would cost $225 per user, according to Tarantella. The vendor said it plans to continue to offer a full-feature bundle at a flat rate of $400.