Cinergix releases Creately

AFTER A YEAR in beta, the design and diagramming tool Creately has been released by Cinergix as a finished product, and it is being offered on a 'pay what you like' basis.

In fact Cinergix is offering two versions of the application to users, Creately Public and Creately Plus. The former is free and the latter follows the 'honesty' trend favoured by pop stars including Radiohead and Cliff Richard.

The public version does have some of its features limited, but otherwise it is fairly comparable to the paid version, and besides, if it's not good enough for your needs you can snap up the Plus version for as little as $2, according to the firm.

"Charging high prices is out as we don't want to rip off customers. Our operational costs per user are pretty low. Just because one person pays $2 does not mean that is the value to everyone. Perhaps that's all a student can afford, but to another person using Creately to build mockups for his/her client, it may be worth $20 - the decision has to be personal and realistic. Most people are fair. Creately is a high-value application, for similar products you'd pay hundreds of dollars for a license. So when compared to the alternatives we believe people will choose a sensible price."

Creately, which goes head to head with comparable products like Visio and Gliffy, offers users collaboration features, a clean user interface and nice usability tools. However the 'pay what you want' offer will only be available for a limited time as Cinergix works out whether that is a method that 'works' for it.

You can test drive and use the free version, Creately Public, at no charge. Then if you are interested in buying the application for the price of a hot dog, or perhaps a bit more depending on what you think it's really worth to you, then you will have until 17th September to get the commercial version, Creately Plus. µ

L'Inq
Creately