M1 "Companion Level" Restructuring


New Support Levels/Labeling and Updated Pricing
M1 Waveform Tools uses a tiered pricing method that takes into account the oscilloscope or digitizer to which it is licensed. There is no difference in functionality between any of the levels. Rather, it is done simply to ensure the cost of M1 is always properly in-scale with the cost of the instrument. Recent announcements of new high-performance instruments by scope manufacturers have created the need for ASA to review our 5-year old pricing and add new levels of support for new very-high-bandwidth instruments. This new pricing structure is effective immediately with the release of M1 v6.05.

The new Level 1 will contain scopes with bandwidths of 20 GHz and above and has a list price of US$11,995.  The yearly Subscription fee will be US$1400.  Note that the introduction of this new tier requires relabeling of the existing Levels, so that the old Level 1 is now Level 2 and so forth.  The table below provides full details of the new structure.*

New Level

Included scopes

 Price (License/Subscription), in USD
1 All scopes >= 20 GHz BW $11,995 / $1400
2 All scopes from old Level 1, except for those >= 20 GHz BW $9495 / $1000
3 All scopes from old Level 2 $7495 / $1000
4 All scopes from old Level 3 $4995 / $750
5 All scopes from old Level 4 $2295 / $500
6 All scopes from old Level 5 $995 / $250
Reader A variety of low BW, shallow memory scopes $495 / $150

For most existing M1 customers, other than the change in Level designation there is no effect on you – M1 will continue to work on your scope as it has previously.  For those customers who have already purchased an (old) Level 1 license for use with a scope >= 20 GHz BW, your license will be updated to the new Level 1 at no additional cost if you have an active Subscription.

* Keen observers will note that this table also reflects new pricing at some Levels.  Please note that this is ASA's first price increase since the introduction of M1 v4 in 2004.  In that time, M1 has gained major capabilities such as Compliance Breakout, Hidden Anomaly Location, a full Apps Program, significant automation capabilities, and Isolated Subpopulation Analysis and many other smaller improvements.  Considering the scale of these innovations, and that unlike ScopeCo we include them in the tool without charging separately, we hope you'll agree that M1 is still a tremendous value.

M1 Reader - New support for "value" scopes

Part of this restructuring brings a significant change to M1 Reader.  Previously, M1 Reader only supported saved waveforms for work offline – it could not acquire live data from a scope. However, there are a large number of value-priced scopes in the world that we believe could benefit from M1, but for which $995 for a scope-locked Level 6 license is not a justifiable expense. So ASA has decided that, in addition to saved data, M1 Reader will also be able to acquire live data from scopes in this value range. This is not a scope-locked license, so one license of M1 Reader could be moved around to acquire data from every value scope in your lab if you wish. Scopes in this Level generally have a maximum bandwidth of 100-200 MHz and an acquisition memory of less than 100 Kpts.  Contact us to find out if your scope qualifies.