After acquiring Minava and investing in XPLM, it's clear that Aras began to stop open version of Innovator.
Well there still "is" a open version. Unfortunately it´s still 12SP9.
One thing that most of the people out there probably oversee: 12SP9 is a still solid work-horse version. Not every new version is a big hit, some introduce a lot of new bugs while other versions fix them.
For example I take care for a 12SP7 instance and it´s sooo much worse then 12SP9 regarding tiny little surprising bugs. Regarding features they are pretty equal, but quality difference is really notable in many corners. I planned to upgrade to 12SP18, but again...a few showstopper bugs where enough to drop the update. (https://community.aras.com/f/development/36912/warning-versioning-and-tab-pane-very-buggy-in-new-innovator-versions-are-you-affected) .
But of course this doesn´t answer the main question: Will there ever be a new open release? Well, it depends. To be honest, I don´t think we will see one soon.
Minerva and XPLM are symptoms. The main change in the last months were new investors and new management. (I hope they don´t mess it up.). And of course they also had to face unfavorable business conditions (covid, dev center changes), so free users aren´t really in the focus.
The open version was important for Aras in the past. But it´s not anymore today. Focus is mainly large accounts. If these customers want to test out your product, they simply call in.
Open release was a door opener for small/mid-sized accounts. But these customers aren´t helpful when you want to grow super-fast. But that´s what investors want to see.
It´s a dilemma. They do a lot of things right in the current roadmap and finally care for the applications (stuff that SMB uses!!). This gives some hope that they return to a broader focus regarding customers.
