On-line credit card orders placed directly on the Maxum Web site are by far the easiest and most common method of purchasing Rumpus. Maxum also accepts institutional purchase orders, as well as faxed or mailed order forms. For complete details, to place an order, or to generate a price quote, please visit the Maxum Sales Information page.

Most Maxum customers choose to receive their order electronically, in which case you will receive an e-mail with a serial number, validation code and order information which will serve as your receipt. Your serial number will validate the demonstration version of Rumpus available on the Maxum Software Downloads page, and will continue to validate new Rumpus releases for at least one year. (See the "Upgrade Policy FAQ" for details.) Customers also have the option of receiving a box, CD and printed receipt, even when placing the order on our Web site. In order to make it possible to more dynamically maintain Rumpus docuemtation, printed manuals are not available, though the included PDF files in the Rumpus package are easily printable.

We believe strongly in the "try before you buy" concept of evaluating software, and want you to be certain that Rumpus is the right tool for you before placing your order. So, the Rumpus demonstration version is fully functional and restriction free. Rumpus demo versions will expire at the end of the month, but as long as your copy is within its evaluation period, it will behave exactly as a validated copy. If you haven't already, please consider downloading a trial copy of Rumpus from the Maxum Software Downloads page.

When you purchase Rumpus, you will receive a serial number and validation code, either in the e-mail message sent electronically or on the registration card included in the Rumpus box. The serial number is then applied to your demonstration copy of Rumpus, removing the expiration date while retaining all setup and configuration options you performed during your evaluation period.

We believe that software upgrades should be accessible and reasonably priced. This is why we guarantee that for at least one year from the time you purchase Rumpus, all version upgrades will be free. This policy protects your investment by assuring you that you will have free access to upcoming fixes and feature enhancements.

When new releases come out for which there is an upgrade charge, the cost is kept reasonable. And we won't trap you into a constant cycle of upgrades by only allowing users of the previous version of Rumpus to upgrade to the next... All upgrades are always available to all previous Rumpus customers, and at the same reasonable price.

To meet the needs of smaller sites as well as large installations and ISPs, Rumpus is offered in both Standard and Pro versions. The Standard version supports up to 32 simultaneous users and 32 user accounts defined in Rumpus' built-in security. For larger sites and ISPs, Rumpus Pro supports up to 256 simultaneous connections and user accounts defined in built-in security are limited only by RAM. Besides these differences, the Standard and Pro versions are identical.

Yes, Maxum offers an upgrade for existing Rumpus Standard customers to the Professional version. This upgrade also includes an upgrade to the latest release of Rumpus, and a renewal of your "free 1 year of upgrades" policy.

If you upgrade to Rumpus Pro within 60 days of your original purchase of Rumpus Standard, the full purchase price will be applied, so that the upgrade cost is only the difference in price between the two versions. After 60 days, the cost is the difference in price plus $50, which covers the cost of the version update and the free upgrade period extension.

To purchase an upgrade, send an e-mail message to info@maxum.com with your request and your Rumpus Standard serial number. We will respond with information on placing a new order with a credit applied for your previous Rumpus purchase.

Maxum originally developed Rumpus for inclusion in Apple's Internet server bundle, back in 1997. As development was getting started, the team needed a code name for the project, but no one had any good ideas.

At the time, my kids were just 2 and 3 years old. One night, I was reading to them the classic children's book "Where The Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. At one point, the hero of the story (a young boy named Max) shouts, "Let the wild Rumpus start!" The word "Rumpus" struck me as fun and unique, a perfect, if irrelevant, codename for our FTP server project.

The name was never intended to be used as the final name, and in fact when it came time to release the "1.0" version of the product, I argued for "Maxum FTP". But by then the name had stuck, and the team voted to publish the package as "Rumpus".

John O'Fallon
Founder, Maxum Development