Commercial Developer Program

question about upcoming developer program

[frisco_pfp]

Does anyone have an update about the upcoming developer program? I am particularly interested in pricing, terms, etc.

Thanks

[jtara]

Still unknown.

A post from a Google employee on the Google Groups today promised word "in a few weeks".

Very disappointing. They just can't seem to get their act together on this.

They promised January, then February, and now "a few weeks".

[inasisi]

Despite Google's emphasis on geeky stuff and all the money it is getting from AdWords, it still treats the Adwords API like a step child.

The API is still in Beta nearly a year after it's introduction.

It still doesn't have a test environment.

The versioning feature with content bidding was released on Feb 1st only to be rolled back and there is no solution yet.

No talks about the Commercial Developer plan even though had talked of putting it in place in January.

The woes just go on. The only reason why they are able to get away with it is because there is no viable alternative. This is just not the way that you would expect a public company to treat it's customers.

[jtara]

What astonishes me is how far they missed the boat, and how slow their bureaucracy moves.

I accept their explanation that they did not see all of the usage cases, and now have to take the time to design a program that satisfies all of them.

But the usage cases that they missed were obvious.

Somebody might want to sell an application for a one-time purchase price, without billing monthly or usage-based fees. REALLY? People do that?

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting where the dreamed-up the goofy quota scheme.

[Tobias]

It is indeed a pain in the ... how they treat their customers and how unprofessionally they handle the API/TOS.

I think it must be a Google policy to not let their partners & customers know anything until the very last moment - if they even tell you ;-)

very poor!