> > I have been dealing with Macromedia/allaire since 1997. And I have > never once seen a price decrease. and in all of that time I want to > say the typical price increase has been about 100%. Or if not a > price increase a drop off in what you are getting.. 4 CPus now is > only 2. (CFMX) 2 Cpus is now only 1 (Flex).
That goes with inflation, technology increases and what not. I'm yet to see any software really get lower in price with increase in features...its like crack, give it cheaply away for free early then once they are hooked, up the price heh...not saying i smoke crack - well it would explain a lot - just an analogy. > > Along time ago they decided to go with the strategy of Fewer > customers paying higher bills. 200 new customers does not sound like > a lot, which is why you have to charge a lot. it certainly is not on > the install base of asp, .NET etc. Clearly they like FLEX becasue it > is new and they can charge twice what they charge for CFMX. You *could* argue the whole Qty vs Quality, 200 customers @ $12k(2xCPU) or 500 customers at 6k(2xCPU) - now you could say that 300 customers could of bought them at 12k and so thats a loss in profits - but reality dictates that those 300 customers could bought into the product based on price. I'm also a little fuzzy as to the what IT Manager in what Enterprise corporation looks at a product like FLEX, (even without knowing it) gives it a test run and simply turns to the powers that be and go "yeah, i think its too cheap so i'm not going to buy it now...if it were double the price, well then maybe ..) I know i'm fueling an argument here but that is a consistent reply i seem to read where people go "Enterprise buy big, its too cheap etc" We bought the product without thinking of the price at all, it was more out of need / and how we could best use it and so thats why i'm in different to the price uphike because i have a rich company to play in. Yet if the whole "its priced for enterprise" companies is just plain silly to me as a lot of IT Managers i know here in Australia in some pretty darn big corporations tend to think conservatively about their spending. I know one company who refuses to buy FLEX because they see Macromedia as this company shouting from the roof tops "we are no longer web agency specific..hello..we are now enterprise..see our products have the word enterprise in them now...carn gimme fiddy-k in products" hehe. that was his exact words btw. > In 2 years it will be FLEX 40k, and you will have only a small base > of people to hire, and if you want a FLEX developer plan on building > a 6 month training process into the hire. Yes, I did a costings on MossyBlog when flex first came out read: http://www.mossyblog.com/archives/235.cfm - Flex The Hidden Costs. I as a personal developer hate the price tag as i want to use FLEX for one of my get rich quick apps floating around in my head hehehe. Yet, again as an employee for the company i work with and the buying power we have, its not a sore point - the future is and thats where i end up caving in on price. Lazlo needs more work, compare as much as you want and strip it down to what it can offer today. Tommorow is another debate and it could just fade away (like many Open Source projects before it) - or it could ramp up and be this dark horse. The point is, how much money and investment will it take to get Lazlo to the point at which you can use Flex now? what benefits is it bringing to the table? what is its background? what's its community like? what's its capabilities in terms of integration with your legacy systems or current technology etc.. I did this little audit a while back for here, and while $15k made my first tier give me this "eh, please explain" - he straight away saw why it was beneficial as all i had to go with was DHTML...15k to code DHTML would be spent in the first 3 months alone in terms man power, testing and may i add a this point no actual worthwhile apps are made. I see Laszlo as the same in many ways. Its too immature and needs more time in the oven. Flex is the sleeping giant. -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com http://www.flexcoder.com (Coming Soon) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/