On 13-May-07, at 11:53 AM, Tim Jones wrote: >> >> Which is why you use RB pro so you can target Mac and Windows > > But, we can't come close to producing the type of apps in RB that can > be produced in VB - the code just isn't strong enough. This is why I > used the comparison.
personal experience with various commercial product made in RB suggest this is not true Check out XSilva Systems RB made app >>> We've done serious market research on this and the sweet spot for a >>> Mac application >>> aimed at the desktop is $69 MSRP with a $50 street price. Granted, >>> the business side of Mac will pay more if you can get a relationship >>> going, but that is an even smaller part of the Mac space. Don't >>> believe that? Look at iLife, Pages and Keynote; even Apple >>> recognizes that pricing is important in this space. >> >> Certainly it is. >> If people perceive the value is there they will pay what you charge. > > But, after monitoring over 3K Mac users over 2 years in both the US > and Europe, if the sticker price on the product is higher than $99, > the average desktop user won't even pick up the package to get a > perception of the product's value. Fair enough. Trial version can help that but then I'm not a product marketing expert so I'll take this at face value > My point was that If we're selling 500K copies, we can easily absorb > a $999 price for a 3rd party add-in as Bob mentioned. However, > selling 1K copies makes either absorption difficult or causes us to > raise our prices for the product about that $99 pain point. Now, the > cost of producing that tool moves from the development tools' price > to the cost of marketing the product so that the customer perceives > of that additional value. Which in turn causes the cost of > development to increase, and so on. Am I reading that correctly ? 500,000 copies would allow you incorporate a < 1000 plugin and cover it's cost ? Even at 1K the cost is $1 per copy > I also know that from what I see on the lists and in the forums, most > users of RB are captive delopers - developing for a specific customer > or for in-house projects. That can make the cost offset even more > difficult as the potential user count has now dropped into the 10's > of users. However, this can also hide the costs of development as > they can either be consumed as a "business expense" since the > development was paid for by the hourly wage paid the developer. Having previously been an in-house developer we always spent what needed to be spent. That was true in the $25 billion co's I worked for and in the small 3 person start ups. If it helps us do business better, makes our product better, etc we bought it. Maybe I've lucked out and worked in companies that realized this is how they made money and would spend that to earn bigger revenue in the long run _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
