On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Heather Williams wrote:
> Don't forget that K12 pricing is drastically reduced. A school can buy a
> 10 user K12 pack for $250 - that's actually $25 per user!
--Which is great, really... but can a parent buy it for the same price for
the student to run at home (which is I suspect what you really want, or,
at least, what I would want if I were you)?
> Forgive my ignorance here, but what does SOHO mean?
--No ignorance, really. Small Office/Home Office. Maybe not the best
term but it sounds so hoity-toity, artsy-f... well, you get the idea. I
didn't know what it meant either the first dozen or so times I heard the
term. Now I just like the way it sounds.
> >And, finally, the 'hobbyist' (FWIW, I really hate that term because it
> >seems so snotty) can't do it at all.
>
> I do agree the term "hobbyist" is not ideal, but it's hard to find a term
> to use that isn't annoyingly patronising. "Beginning programmer"?
> "Part-time User"?
> >This is where competing products (dead and alive) really shine.
> Yes, but look at what happened to Hypercard... We *don't* want to be a
> dead product. We can't live on air and program on Quadras... If even
> Apple couldn't justify continuing to update Hypercard at the price it was
> selling at, what hope would we have?
--Many people suspect it was something other than a purely sound,
rational, business decision. In any case, they're a larger company and
what they could have done isn't necessarily what your firm(s) are able to
do. Point is taken.
> >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'.
>
> Well, I hope not. Time will tell. But Director is *much* more expensive
> when you consider you have to buy two licenses to run on both major
> platforms (and doesn't do Unix/Linux) and that's certainly a mainstream
> product...
--Yes, but not for the home user. Still way too expensive for people who
have some need to roll their own without paying through their nose for it.
I still think teachers won't be able to afford to do it (without having
their districts pay for it), parents won't be able to afford to do it
without having their kid pirate the program from their school, and the
person running an office out of their home is going to have to think
really long and hard about it. And the new progammer/whatever, unless
they're independently wealthy, simply is unlikely to either have the money
or see it being spent on Revolution as a good 'investment' with the
current pricing & upgrade structure, improved as it is.
Perhaps the teacher, the small home office person, the parent and the new
programmer isn't what is meant by the term 'mainstream' but, if not, then
who is other than the professional programmer?
Regards,
Judy Perry
