Clemens complains about the SKU strategy for MS Office, and the role InfoPath is going to play. Talking to a friend today, I realized that the whole way InfoPath is packaged is wrong.
InfoPath should be two tools: One tool should be the forms and schema creation tool. This is the one that developers and advanced users would use. The second tool would the one that would allow you to open, fill and submit InfoPath forms (or "run InfoPath applications", if you prefer). The latter should be distributed free of charge, sort of how Microsoft does for the Office viewers.
I think this would open up a huge number of opportunities for using InfoPath where the current licensing terms simply wouldn't allow.
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archived from WordPress — closedThis is actually how Altova handles it with XMLSpy. They have the full-blown XMLSpy license (which includes the "forms" designer [really a GUI for creating an XSLT]), then they have a "lite" application used for filling out the forms (called Authentic).
I had high hopes for InfoPath (and to be fair I know it's only beta 2) b/c the form designer in XMLSpy is a serious pain to use, but from my initial tests, Altova has nothing to worry about.