Judy Perry writes:
> Without such 'whining' as you call it we probably wouldn't have the new
> Rev UI for Metacard as it took a considerable amount of whining just to
> get certain people to accept that there were serious shortcomings to the
> original product's interface.
Actually, Rev has been in development looooong before it came on the radar
of most HC users.
Rev represents far more than a "fix" for MC. It's really taking the engine
in an entirely different direction, aiming to make the power of the MetaTalk
interpreter attractive to an very different type of developer than MC Corp
is focused on.
> But cost is still an issue. Everyone's been asked to 'see' that the
> company cannot afford to offer the product for less. What others wish
> not to see is that many users cannot justify a $900 replacement for a
> $100 tool.
But HyperCard was not a $100 tool.
Market succeesses like Flash suggest that HC was worth at least three times
what it was selling for.
Apple heavily subsidized HyperCard, selling it so far below market value as
a tradeoff for what they saw as a strategic benefit for the OS/hardware
platform. At one time they were committed enough to subsidize it 100%,
giving it away for free with every Mac. I still believe there's a good
argument for them to consider similar moves, but apparently they "think
different" on this.
Remember that once Apple decided that the product needed to be viable on its
own revenue stream, $100 was not enough to sustain the unusually high
overhead associated with authoring tools relative to other application
types. Today HyperCard is no longer in active development.
When we look at other offerings in the same feature category as RunRev, we
see a favorable comparison:
Director $999 - single platform
Director $1800 - dual platform
ToolBook $2495 - single platform
What some of the folks on this list seem to be looking for is a product in a
different category. I respect that, and hope that the good folks at Rev
will be able to define a product that fully satisfies that category.
Thus far their focus has been on providing 100% of the features for a
fraction of the cost, with the trade-off being the requirement for getting
support via email on this list as opposed to via email to them directly.
It sounds like there may be an argument for another product with a more
limited feature set for that category. What limited feature set would be
acceptable? Would limiting the standalone builder to single-platform
deployment provide what you need?
> This next semester I could add another 25 licenses to the bottom line.
> Then, for that semester and every succeeding semester of use, I could add
> another 35 or so licenses (for the students who wish to use the product at
> home). Multiply this by every instructor like me and then realize that
> this isn't going to happen at the current cost.
Macromedia's educational price for their $399 Flash product is $99, with the
restriction that no commercial development can be done with it (they warn on
their site that they do periodic audits).
I agree that it would be useful for RunRev to consider offering a volume
discount for the education market in line with the percentages offered by
market leaders.
> At best, you'll get a lot of pirated copies. At worst, I'll end up
> going with an OSX-native Supercard because at least it's affordable
> and will likely do most of what I/we need it to do.
I don't think that would be a conflict. SuperCard is agressively priced,
and if you're only developing in an educational environment and just for Mac
OS and don't need other RunRev features or performance, SC is a good value.
I think SC and Rev are very different products, more of a compliment than
competition.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
_____________________________________________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com
Tel: 323-225-3717 AIM: FourthWorldInc Fax: 323-225-0716
