David Bailey wrote: > I wouldn't be surprised to find (although I can't prove this and it is > purely conjecture) that Sibelius is offering better deals to school > labs, and I also wouldn't be surprised to find that Sibelius is sending > free copies to undecided music teachers who are in charge of school > labs, just to win the contract. > > Sibelius is no more easy to use out of the box these days than Finale > is. But Finale isn't pouring the resources (i.e. free copies of Finale > and drastically reduced multi-licenses) into capturing the school market.
Gotta love this kind of logic. I don't mean to pick on you, David, but in your first paragraph you say "I can't prove this and it is purely conjecture", then go on in your second paragraph to say that MakeMusic aren't pouring the same resources into capturing the school market as Sibelius are -- having established that you don't even *know* that these resources exist! In fact in my experience MakeMusic *do* work quite hard to get Finale into schools. I sat in on a shoot-out in our district between Finale and Sibelius, with a rep from each of the two companies there. They even had some students sit in on the session, and at the end of it asked the students which program they would rather use; the majority said Sibelius. Also, it seems that Sibelius is actually more expensive than Finale in an educational setting (for example, a single academic copy is $299 for Finale, and $319 for Sibelius, at the retail price, though you can get both for less if you shop around). I don't know about the lab packs, but I'd be surprised if there was much difference in price. I also wasn't offered any free copies of Sibelius when I went to the shoot-out (I had to buy mine -- I have both Finale and Sibelius on my Mac). I also seem to remember somebody saying (on this list?) that MakeMusic were offering very deep discounts for lab packs -- so copies could end up priced as low as $10 a seat, or something crazy like that. Can't remember when I heard that, but that sounds to me like a pretty serious attitude to the education market. I know we all have a pretty low opinion of software companies, but I would imagine that both MakeMusic and Sibelius engage in precisely the same kinds of tactics when trying to increase their market share, whether it's in education or any other market sector. Welcome to the world of capitalism, everybody -- and may the best man win. Best, -WR -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
