Vector NTI Is Dead // Long Live Vector NTI
Previously in the Bioinformatics Toolchest series I talked about Vector NTI as a great tool available free to researchers. Unfortunately I’m going to have to reverse that recommendation. The cornerstones of my reasoning were that the tool worked well and was freely available to academic researchers. However, Vector NTI is no longer free for researchers.
Vector NTI was offered by Invitrogen. But Invitrogen will not exist much longer. Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems have finalized a merger to become the mega-company Life Technologies. I’m personally not a big fan of the big companies swallowing each other to create even bigger companies with less competition. But I thought, hey, probably not that bad. A few weeks ago I received an e-mail since I am a registered Vector NTI user. It stated that on December 15, 2008 Vector NTI 11 would be out. This is exciting for me. New Vector features, bug fixes, streamlining, should be good. Wrong. The new version comes with the discontinuation for free licenses for researchers. Why you ask? Good question. The original FAQ they published has disappeared since then, but is here courtesy of the Google cache. An excerpt from that FAQ follows
6. Why has Invitrogen discontinued the free v10 license program?
Over the past three years, the v10 free license program has been an overwhelming success by the sheer number of researchers using this version of the software. In that time, you have told us very clearly you want added features, easier licensing, and more personalized technical support. In response, we have completely redesigned both the software and our licensing options for academic researchers. Vector NTI AdvanceTM 11 contains major new cloning, design and search functionality, a completely updated interface, support on Intel-based Macs as well as Windows® Vista, and new, cost-effective 1-year and 3-year license options exclusively for academic researchers. These new license options also include personalized Technical Support by email, and are delivered directly to you by email without the need to register or log in separately. At significantly reduced prices compared with our Commercial Licenses, these new options respect the current grant funding and other realities of academic research.
Personally I would rather have the free license with the option to purchase a tech support contract, or pay a higher rate for per use support. Who knows the real reason the licenses were discontinued. Maybe too many researchers asking for assistance. Maybe restructuring for additional money during and after the merger. Either way, Vector NTI is no longer a viable option for those looking for free tools. However, if you have liked the tool in the past and need it’s features for your research, it’s still a good application. If you’re willing to pay the price. Any suggestions for alternative free tools are encouraged in the comments.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
I am quite annoyed by this too. I hope some people have some ideas about some FOSS alternatives
January 6th, 2009 at 6:23 am
This is a rather disgusting thing for Invitrogen to do, really. I have now made up all my constructs, primers and everything in Vector NTI 10 and since I activated my version about a year ago, this will mean that in short time my copy will be in demo mode again. Ergo, my data will become read-only and can not be exported or modified, making it practically unusable for my purposes. Basically Invitrogen is now holding my data for ransom, offering a free service and then changing the terms overnight. I took a look at their “cost-effective” license options targeted at post-docs or graduate students but they dare to ask £460 for a 1 year license. Cost-effective my ass, this is just outrageous. In general I used to be quite pleased with the reagents that I got from Invitrogen, but from now on I will start to look for alternatives wherever I can.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:04 am
This is terrible, I had hundreds of plasmids in vector nti and now i cant open them as the free licence expired.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
@ruben
I’m pretty perturbed myself. I don’t see how me paying a large sum of me would be more cost-effective than not paying that money. At least from my perspective.
@Ian & @ruben
I think you may be able to export the data into FASTA files or other formats that should be readable in alternative software. If Vector won’t let you export your libraries then my advice would be to contact Invitrogen directly. They should be able to tell you how to export this information without an active license.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:19 am
@Eli Roberson
Can you recommend any good plasmid manipulation software that can use those exported FASTA formated files?
Haha, on the Invitrogen FAQ they said that you can export a still active license from one computer to another so I followed their instructions (emailing some info to them) and got a big ‘F-you, you can’t do that’ reply from them.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
@Kevin
I’ll see what I can find out about other options for plasmid manipulation kinds of functions.
I really have no respect for locking someone’s data in a proprietary format. You should ALWAYS be able to get your data out.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:28 am
I can only agree with the other speakers. I an unknown period of time all my plasmids, constructs and so on will be locked. This is a really nasty move by Invitrogen.
As a consequence I will start avoiding this company whenever I can.
Greetings Stefan
January 14th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Two years work and now you have to pay for your own data, that’s not better then mafia. I used CLC viewer (free) to import Vector NTI data (there is an extra option to import your whole Vector NTI database). Then you are able to export your data as genbank files or FASTA. But there is still no way to search for motifs or to edit plasmid data properly.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
It seems to me this should be illegal if there is no way to export the data other than buying a license.
January 18th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
There *is* a crack for VNTI 11 out there, but I’ve been trying to learn CLCBio’s (free) Sequence Viewer as Matin mentioned and it’s really growing on me. It’s going to take a looong time to convert all of my plasmid maps, though.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Everyone contact your Invitrogen SalesRep and protest!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know that it might not help much, but if many people protest and start using alternatives such as CLC it might help.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
The end of their statement says: “At significantly reduced prices compared with our Commercial Licenses, these new options respect the current grant funding and other realities of academic research”
but really should be:
“At significantly increased prices compared with our previous Free for Academic Usage policy, these new options turn Vector NTI into an overpriced and thus unattractive bioinformatics solution that has become completely out of touch with the realities of academic research”
January 24th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Another Alternative is Geneious. Try it!
January 25th, 2009 at 7:00 am
i have heard of pDraw32. it suppose to be able to use VNTI databases without export-import prosses.
dont know- i didn’t use it myself yet
January 27th, 2009 at 11:37 am
The Invitrogen’s arrogance has to have a price. I’m not sure if they understand the value of customer loyalty. GM, anyone? As a community we must start a boycott campaign to demonstrate that drug dealer tactics do not work in the long run.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
[...] golden age of Vector NTI has ended, and free software licenses are no longer available to academics. This move has been [...]
January 30th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Invitrogen has passed on some advice on exporting data from VNTI.
I can be found here:
http://bioinformatics.whatheblog.com/?p=29
February 1st, 2009 at 4:19 am
It’s a pain to pay for it when it was free, but they provided us annual licenses only though, not perpetual.. Besides the software costs +4500$ for non academics! I heard you can get a license for less than 500$ if you call and complain..
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:32 am
Hi Everyone,
there is a free alternative. GENtle (http://gentle.magnusmanske.de/). It’s even open source, so if word gets around the community can adapt it to it’s needs. IT is the only really free and open software that I know of, therefore our data can not be held hostage again.
February 4th, 2009 at 7:46 am
MacVector will read those Genbank/pept files exported by VectorNTI and runs on all Macs without boot camp. Mac only I’m afraid though.
(Disclaimer, I do work for MV, Inc).
February 5th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Free version??
Invitrogen 2008 profit = 1,281.7 million US$
go figure…
February 9th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Hi, cool site, good writing
February 10th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
To Kevin S, any possible hints?
February 13th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Google?
February 17th, 2009 at 11:39 am
GENtle seems to be dead since 2005. Too bad as it does seem to be the best available candidate
February 17th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
if you are locked out there is a simple solution, download the free trial of version 11 then export your data with no worries
I don’t like the fact that it isn’t free anymore either, but not many companies would have given it to us for free in the first place
February 21st, 2009 at 8:35 am
[...] golden age of Vector NTI has ended, and free software licenses are no longer available to academics. This move has been [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I personally love Geneious – it comes with free basic functionality plus a free demo of enhanced features.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:06 am
APE is also a good alternative: http://www.biology.utah.edu/jorgensen/wayned/ape/
Invitrogen’s style is sickening. And all you can do is accept whatever Invitrogen does, as protesting against such big companies is a mere waste of energy.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:33 am
Dear VNTI users & Molecular biologists,
I’m quite disappointed by Invitrogen politics’ about VNTI software licensing. I’m an “old” academic user of this software since VNTI4 if I remember well.
So up to the VNTI9 I pay software with a no time limited licence and the possibility to pay for upgrades like the vast majority of softwares.
The new system is revolting (others French words come in my mind!). Because first the way they impose it after a free licensing system to educate us to ask for an annual licence each year. Second the fact that they says that users ask for!!! Incredible how they think we are silly!
I think first that it was just after absorption of Informax by Invitrogen and the fact that they add specific applications fo Invitrogen tools, kits, gateway technology, oligo order etc…
But in fact they set a trap!
So the only way to obtain the old system was to send emails to contest their politic. I do several and they are looking at my arguments. But if I’m not alone… and with a better English, may be the things can change;-)
Kind regards
Marc
“Help with free v10 license”
April 14th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
thanks !! very helpful post!
May 6th, 2009 at 3:21 am
For those that still have the demo version of Vector NTI version 6 (I know, I know… it’s a very old version but works well for the core applications) there still hope to use this software for free and more importantly, get access to your plasmid maps again! This particular version have a bug in the copy-paste-OK option when you create a new plamsid, that make the software virtually usable. Of course you will not have all the features of the software available, but at least, you will be able to see and edit your plasmid maps! I really believe the new versions of the software were made free in recent years not only to promote the use of the software between academics but also with the intention to “remove” the old demo versions, and in this way create a “new” dependent market for the software. It’s not the ideal solution but…
May 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
You can try Serial Cloner. It’s no VectorNTI but it has some tools and it’s free…
http://serialbasics.free.fr/Serial_Cloner.html
May 30th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I am totally stuck with my research progress due to the exorbitant price for vector NTI. My adviser would not support so much of money and I am just trying to do few DNA work based on my guesses of restriction enzyme sites. It’s unfair for the users and forces people for illegal downloads. I have started to support hackers and such works.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Hi, cool post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for writing.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Hello,
Since the time Vector NTI went commercial, I started using SimVector from Premier Biosoft. Its a really handy tool for cloning and now supports Vector NTI files. Check out http://www.premierbiosoft.com/plasmid_maps/VectorNTI.html
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:26 am
Hi – has anybody bought and downloaded a cra*cked version ? Does it work
?
I have no scrupules when it comes to ripping off mega profit company taking advantage of academics – especially as I order lots of stuff from them.