Rampage Upgrade costs

I used to pay for Scitex support. It was expensive and I was often in a game of phone tag. I started with Reception, then Applications and then on to the hardware guys. By comparison Rampage is a dream come true in terms of price and service. They answer the phone and take care of the customer instantly. I like the work flow too.

Matt Louis
 
Does anyone know roughly how much it would be to upgrade to the newest version of Rampage from version 9.4? I would need new machines and everything.
 
Lutzie32 said:
Does anyone know roughly how much it would be to upgrade to the newest version of Rampage from version 9.4? I would need new machines and everything.
Click to expand...

We upgraded this last August from v10 to v12.
The costs are the same for v9 to v12.
PM me and I'll give you details via email...
 
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I wanted to add some info to the posts I made last year about the long time criticism of Rampage in regards to PDF export. For years one of the criticisms of Rampage was that it did not have a true NORM workflow. In other words it was unable to export a vector PDF for customer approval and instead could only output RIPed PDFs. This was seen as a problem in the Rampage workflow. My thought has always been that it is unsafe to send out a proof that has not been RIPed; due to the fact that if the un-RIPed PDF is approved and then RIPs in a way that is different than the proof, the job gets printed incorrectly.

Now I see this post:
http://printplanet.com/forums/prepress-workflow-discussion/28178-low-res-pdfs-client

It seems to confirm that it is unwise to send out un-RIPed PDF proofs even from the workflows with true NORM capability. Due to all of the different types of Acrobat used by customers a vector PDF may appear differently on different systems. In this case Prinergy PDF proofs are causing issues. The solutions posted in the forums are to send rasterized PDFs. In other words RIP them, which is what Rampage has always done. Has it ever been a good idea to send out proofs that are not RIPed?
 
I send out pre-proof PDF's. Once they are ok'ed for content I rip and print out paper proofs for color and position. The PDF pre-proof saves some time and $ catching errors in spelling, among other things.
 
I send out plenty of pre-impo PDFs as well and many jobs are proofed via PDF proofs only (at least for the customer); but the PDFs I send out are RIPed files. My issue and concern is with sending out "un-RIPed" files as proofs. If they are not RIPed and are approved, then when they do RIP something could change and the job has now not actually been proofed. In addition to potential RIPing issues it also looks like vector PDFs with "active" elements may preview incorrectly in the many flavors of Acrobat. Hasn't it always just been safer to send out a RIPed proof, which in addition to already being rasterized, will also display correctly in almost all configurations of Acrobat?
 
Lutzie32 said:
Does anyone know roughly how much it would be to upgrade to the newest version of Rampage from version 9.4? I would need new machines and everything.
Click to expand...

Just priced this out about a month ago from 10.4 with a new box. Cost was roughly $2500-5000 for the new box depending on the bells and whistles. Support for a year was in the ballpark of $1500-2000, which you'd probably need for the first month anyway. And the software upgrade was something like $6000-7000. All together it was like $13,000+
 
I guess I am tired of all the cheap asses in this industry trying to squeeze a nickle out of every vendor they can. I am so glad I retired. It is a shame that so many wonderful people in this industry are obscured by the people who moan about prices and dont even know the value they are getting. Rampage is an outstanding value compared to Prinergy. I cant say it is the same product but the service flies above Kodak. Just get a mindmeld and realize that you get what you pay for. Most of these cheap squeezes have gone out of business through the years as they have not allocated their expenses to account for these upgrades. They sell by price only and try to get juice out of their employees and their vendors. Had to pop off after almost 48 years. Feels good!
 
Well I priced out Prinergy (I hate Kodak) and Apogee (Agfa), and they were both about 3 times as much as Rampage just to get started. I've been a Rampage user going on 10 years now and I love it. I previously used Scitex, RIPIt!, and SignaStation, so I don't have a lot of experience with modern RIP software, but Rampage does what I need it to, with very few issues. I do strip with Preps, but if we had more money I know I'd go to Metrix.
 
You can upgrade your existing hardware now, it works rampage does not like it but i tossed out their stuff and replaced with HP GL workstations and I was running 10 at the time. I'm not sure if they have it locked down to their stuff these days but if not you can put it on your hardware of choice, they just do not support it. Oh another thing don't tell them they will not support you on the 1750 extortion fee, it will be invalidated.
 
Rampage Proofs

Rampage Proofs

We are running Rampage 12.2 and use either the NORM or ROOM workflow depending on the type if file we are sent. We send pdf proofs from Rampage from both workflows. A Rampage pdf proof is not a true vector pdf, but is a raster file with a pdf wrapper for viewing. We know that when we send a client a proof, what they see is what they will get.

Rampage 12.2 handles pdfs beautifully. We use jdf for much of our work, and are a 7 million dollar shop with only two people doing imposition.
Rampage has the finest support I have ever used, and upgrades are reasonable when you don't let yourself get so far behind. The cost of ownership is the lowest of any system of its caliber.



Mike Bishop said:
According to a call I placed to Tech support at Rampage last week there is no cost for point upgrades (12.0 to 12.1, 12.2 to 12.3 etc.). The $1750 gets you unlimited Tech support and all point upgrades in a given year. This is a great deal.

As far as NORM workflow - I have not used it as a standard workflow in Rampage. I don't understand why someone would want to send out a proof that is not RIPed. A vector PDF is not RIPed. Why use the ability of a RIP to NOT RIP something as a selling point? Couldn't you just send out the PDF you are GOING to RIP, get an approval and then RIP it. Apart from sharing files with another printer who has their own trapping and color preferences I don't see the point in the NORM workflow. What advantage does it give you?
Click to expand...
 
I have updated to Mountain Lion MacOS 10.8.2 Now I can't use RAMpage. I have version 12.1. Is there a upgrade. I've gone to fuji's site but I can't find no info. S.O.S.
 
There is an update to version 12.2.
I received it at the end of November 2012.
It says that it is compatible with 10.8, but I have not upgraded my production Macs to that yet.
 
Version 12.1. of the Mac Client or do you have version 12.1. of Rampage itself? My client is 12.1b8 and I can use Lion and Mountain lion with it.
 
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