Over the years I have used various versions of Extensis Portfolio to catalogue the vast collection of graphical goodness we have on our works' network however I lost touch with it for a while due to other commitments.
So today, when I'm wasn't busy I decided to revisit using Portfolio to create newer catalogues of our archives and integrate it with our newer, updated IT systems.
I was somewhat disappointed to see that Extensis had discontinued the standalone version of Postfolio back in mid 2014. Not only that, but they'd vastly increased the price of this supposed 'newer, reinvented' version, restricted the number of sharable catalogues to a measly one and restricted the users to a measly three, this is for around £1500, and that doesn't include any kind of support either!
There are two other versions (Enterprise and Professional) that enable you to share unlimited catalogues and have more users but, by the looks of it you would have to take out a small mortgage to afford it or be one of the 'Fortune 500' companies that have Portfolio that Extensis coo about on their website, tossers.
Bloody ridiculous Extensis, there's no fucking way any small business would be prepared to pay that much when that kind of money could pay for a half decent server or a kick ass Mac/PC.
So I didn't bother because, as a small business living on the breadline after years of austerity (yes Extensis, drag yourselves out of your perfect world bubble and realise no-one has any fucking money), we have to prioritise our IT spending on other equipment/software. What I DID do though was get Portfolio 8.5 running on one of our XP boxes and started it cataloguing our new archives, and from what I've seen so far it is doing a pretty good job, albeit slowly!
I'll bet there are millions of photographers out there that rely on Portfolio to make it easier to go through their image libraries and that have now dropped it due to the cost.
So, shame on you Extensis, you've alienated individuals and small businesses by doing what you've done.
