Hornby RailMaster PC Model Railway Control System is no longer available...

[Chris Surrey]

Interesting entry on the Hornby site ( as pet title)Anyone have any idea what this means for the future of Railmastef and eLink?

[RB51]

To be accurate Chris - on the shop part of this web-site it says "Out of Stock", not "No longer available". Have you seen a message using your words elsewhere? Hattons still have some (more than 10) in stock for £5. R-

[Chrissaf]

Not a lot, as the documentation on the Hornby site is IMO misleading.

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It is only saying that buying RailMaster as physical media i.e a CD in a box is no longer available for new supply from Hornby. The physical RailMaster CD media is still bundled in with eLink hardware (currently).

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For those who want to add RailMaster control to their previously purchased Elite hardware, which was the reason for producing the R8144 boxed CD option in the first place, they can still purchase RailMaster. Only instead of buying a box with a physical CD in it. You download the application (thereby automatically getting the very latest version) and use the WITHIN APPLICATION PURCHASE page to obtain the authentication key via email to make the 'RailMaster Evaluation' copy a full licensed version.

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Extract below taken from Hornby 'Downloads' page:

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Whilst stock at Hattons last. It is cheaper to buy their old out of date stock of physical CD media for £5 just to get the 'Authentication Key', than it is to use the 'within application purchase' at cira £70. You download the latest version, and the Hattons CD Key still works with it.

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So in essence, it is still sold and supported, but via a 'cheaper to Hornby' distribution business model. This is not unlike many other software product selling practices, where software is downloaded instead of sold on CDs. I do acknowledge however, that Hornby marketing could do more to advertise the "within application purchase" option as being available.

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PS - For Roger. Chris (Surrey) pasted his topic title directly from the Hornby website. You can see the original text as written here:

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/shop/power-control/dcc-controllers/hornby-railmaster-pc-model-railway-control-system.html

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[Chris Surrey]

@chrissaf

Thanks. That explains it. 

[Chrissaf]

I do acknowledge however, that Hornby marketing could do more to advertise the "within application purchase" option as being available.

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I suspect the reason for this, and it is only a theory. But given that Hornby have outsourced the design, writing and support of RailMaster to Invicto Systems (a software house), known on these forums as HRMS. I suspect that the income from selling RailMaster goes primarily to Invicto and not Hornby to pay for their services. Thus there is no incentive for Hornby marketing to promote just the purchase of a software license on its own. Hornby's profit comes from selling Hardware i.e eLink. The 'within application' purchase page is managed and controlled by Invicto and not Hornby.