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When InOrbit launched the Free Edition of our platform back in October of 2021 we had no idea it would see so much success. Today we take some time to explore why it’s been such a positive and impactful launch for the InOrbit community and examine what users can expect if they haven’t had a chance to try Free Edition yet. These are the top 3 reasons people love InOrbit Free Edition.
1 - It’s FREE and frictionless
Evaluating tools to support robot projects can be a demanding and costly prospect. Every time a developer has to seek approval from a VP for tool testing, it sets them back, if not financially then in time and legwork. These points of friction frustrate us, just as much as they do the developers and partners we work with.
This is especially important when working at a start-up. InOrbit is a lean start-up, so we understand the realities of the business and culture most robotics manufacturers face. An outsider may not be sympathetic to the fact that a small company, that may have already raised a large amount of VC capital, still faces day-to-day concerns around every incremental dollar spent. But we know that there is a major difference between a $1 and $0 cost.
InOrbit Free Edition is actually free forever and for unlimited robots. It is not a trick. There is no “limited-time trial” period. We simply want to put the best RobOps tools on the market into the hands of engineers with zero friction.
We are able to do this because we truly believe in the value of InOrbit’s orchestration and operations toolset, and we’re confident that once users dig in they will see the same value. This fully aligns with InOrbit’s mission: maximizing the potential of every robot.
2 - It’s designed to scale with robot deployments
InOrbit Free Edition is built to scale as deployments grow. We help manufacturers avoid the need to rebuild or replace technologies as projects scale.
We’ve seen it happen again and again, and the waste can be staggering. Robot developers are wasting time, money and creativity reinventing the wheel by building operational tools for their robots. We’ve seen brilliant minds creating the same infrastructure as everyone else, not because it’s what they *really* want to work on, but because they can – or perhaps because they don’t know any better.
As developers ourselves, we know the rationale to build tools internally. The truth is, however, that most robot developers produce little more than quickly assembled tools with only basic functionality. Internally developed operational tools we see in the market often neglect larger orchestration concerns, including support for multi-robot deployments. Companies often underinvest in the data management and analytics that are critical to providing business insights to drive adoption.
That’s why integrating the right tools from the start is so important. Internally developed operational tools almost uniformly do not work as robot projects scale. What’s manageable for 5 robots in a pilot simply will not support 500 robots in the field.
InOrbit Free Edition is designed to scale with developers and support their vision for their robot fleet. We believe robot manufacturers should focus on what sets them apart in the marketplace, namely their unique differentiators. Having the right tools in place allows for development to be focused where it matters most.
3 - It works with the Developer Portal to provide solutions devs need
Free Edition lets robot developers accelerate their time to market with access to our proven infrastructure at no cost. Engineering time and talent can be spent on solving problems that are core to their particular solution and as adoption grows, manufacturers and their customers can be assured that InOrbit Free Edition will scale at no additional cost.
When unique challenges arrive developers using Free Edition in conjunction with the InOrbit Developer Portal have even more opportunities for customization and granular control to tackle whatever comes their way.
The Developer Portal, is a centralized toolbox of APIs, SDKs, embed codes and other open-source contributions, such as our growing list of interoperability solutions and ChatOps integrations. In addition to the tools, the Developer Portal also offers clear documentation that explains how our components work and how they work together.
InOrbit Free Edition and the Developer Portal together lets roboticists and software engineers get started quickly with tools that solve problems and can be incorporated as part of any robotics development workflow.
This circles back to the build vs buy question. We know it’s one that ends up playing out at some point for most robot developers. We think it should be reframed to a build and buy solution though. Manufacturers should focus on their robots and on their vision. We believe they should build the basic operational tools as needed, but buy the more advanced RobOps features that are already proven to work and scale. With InOrbit Free Edition, and the Developer Portal exploring how our tools can integrate into that vision has never been easier.
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To be clear, InOrbit Free Edition does not offer the full suite of capabilities found with InOrbit Standard Edition. We have a solution to fit every need, and if needed upgrading with InOrbit is seamless. But Free Edition does solve all of the most common operational challenges robot manufacturers face.
Simply put, Free Edition gives users a chance to easily explore the enormous capabilities InOrbit has to offer. We want developers to get their hands dirty, try us out, even if they don’t have robots in production yet, our solutions are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing technologies and solve tomorrow’s operations problems today. We’re confident that Free Edition promises some truly transformative operations software, and encourage everyone to try it out.
