On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Heather Williams wrote:
> We hear you. However, the pricing structure is actually an improvement on
> the original pricing, which only gave you the options of the (free)
> Starter kit, or the Pro license at $995. I don't think $349 assumes that
> the buyer must be a corporation, it's a price that many shareware authors
> for example could easily justify in time and effort saved to make a
> product that sells.
--It's certainly true that $350 is considerably better than $1K, but for
some even the new, improved and drastically price-reduced product is still
out of reach. For example, even if it flies high in academia, few K-12
students are likely going to be able to convince their parents to shell
out $350 for something they may 'outgrow' in a year's time. The SOHO
person might well also be wondering if the price can be justified.
And, finally, the 'hobbyist' (FWIW, I really hate that term because it
seems so snotty) can't do it at all.
This is where competing products (dead and alive) really shine. When it
was claimed (I'm forgetting where now) that something like many hundreds
of thousands (I'm also forgetting the #s) of people used HC making it one
of the most widely-used languages on the planet, probably most of them
never would have had they had to pay $350 plus a hefty annual update
subscription to do so.
The current pricing structure, which I again must emphasize is vastly
improved, is still likely to serve as a barrier for the product becoming
anything like 'mainstream'.
Regards,
Judy Perry
