Re: [Finale] Putting Finale in schools [was: Re: Finale Digest, Vol13, Issue 22]
William Roberts wrote: Welcome to the world of capitalism, everybody -- and may the best man win. VHS is the best man? Esso was the best man? CDaudio is the best man? In the world of capitalism, being the best man has nothing to do with it. Being the one with the deeper pockets so you can ride out whatever the other competition does, or can force them to cut their own throats, that's what wins. Vhs won because the VHS folks locked up all the big movie studios so that Sony was left out in the cold. Sony's CDaudio format won out because it purchased the biggest record library in the world, having learned from the VHS/Betamax travesty. Esso won out simply because Rockefeller had deep enough pockets he could undercut all the competition until they went out of business and then recoup the losses he incurred in doing what he did by raising the prices that competition had forced him to charge. No competition meant price gouging. Rarely does the truly best man win. Most often the wealthiest to start with wins, or the one who removes the competition by whatever means possible (usually not the result of a free marketplace) wins. But then, maybe that's what you mean by best man. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Putting Finale in schools [was: Re: Finale Digest, Vol13,Issue 22]
David Bailey wrote: VHS is the best man? Esso was the best man? CDaudio is the best man? Good grief. There's no way to respond to this (except to say that, despite the fact I myself owned a Betamax video, the real reason VHS was the best man was that you could fit a whole movie onto a tape, something it took Sony years to put right on Betamax). Rarely does the truly best man win. Most often the wealthiest to start with wins, or the one who removes the competition by whatever means possible (usually not the result of a free marketplace) wins. But then, maybe that's what you mean by best man. There are dozens of counter-examples to this. Was Microsoft the wealthiest to start with, going up against IBM? You can argue it both ways until you're blue in the face. But what doesn't help anybody is baseless theorizing about conspiracies that may or may not exist. Fact is, MakeMusic and Sibelius *are* competing on a level playing field. Both companies have a lot to offer to educators. Both companies seem to be working quite hard to win the hearts and minds of teachers in high schools and universities. Good for them! And I don't see any evidence that either one is likely to wipe out the other any time soon. I also don't see any evidence that either one of them is engaging in particularly underhand tactics. But, hey, I don't know everything -- and maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. Anybody seen any black helicopters over Eden Prairie recently? ;^) 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
Re: [Finale] Putting Finale in schools [was: Re: Finale Digest, Vol13,Issue 22]
Damn! They found me...I shouldn't have bought that copy of Catcher in the Rye... ;-) On 8/23/04 12:54 PM, William Roberts [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anybody seen any black helicopters over Eden Prairie recently? ;^) ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Putting Finale in schools [was: Re: Finale Digest, Vol13, Issue 22]
On 22 Aug 2004 at 13:32, William Roberts wrote: Welcome to the world of capitalism, everybody -- and may the best man win. If capitalism worked that way Microsoft wouldn't have a monopoly. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Putting Finale in schools [was: Re: Finale Digest, Vol13, Issue 22]
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
