Judy Perry writes:
>> Market succeesses like Flash suggest that HC was worth at least three times
>> what it was selling for.
>
> --A common wisdom of the business world is that a product is worth what it
> sells for for a majority of the people buying it.
Just as common is the acknowledgement that pricing must make the tool
viable.
Because one vendor used to sell a tool at a loss (which eventually
contributed to its demise) does not obligate other vendors to match that
subsidized price. If such an obligation could exist, the only software
vendor left would be Microsoft; no other company has the cash to dump tools
below cost.
I hope we can move past that and get back to the core issue:
What can RunRev do to satisfy requests for a more affordable
version of their professional authoring environment?
To me, RunRev's offer seems very generous: If folks are willing to email
support questions to this list instead of emailing them to RunRev, they can
purchase the full version of the current product for an incredible discount.
One of the tradeoffs with this steep discount is that the licensee is not
paying the subscription price, and therefore does not get the subscription
for updates.
If limitations of licensing terms are not preferred, the other option is to
limit features. What feature limitations would be acceptable to HyperCard
users doing solely educational development?
The distinction seems useful: Anyone using Rev in any commercial context
(products or internal tools) will be able to demonstrate a very high return
on investment in short order.
>> 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.
>
> --Wouldn't the Rev folks prefer that all those sales went to them instead?
> Why else hire somebody to create a policy to lure the K-12 market?
Because while the Mac enjoys disproportinate penetration in education, it is
still a minority platform. Most educators run Windows, and even most of
those using Macs still need to integrate with Windows. Mac-only development
is, numerically, a small niche, and one would expect to pay less for a tool
that can only deploy its media on 4% of desktops (or 28% in education).
--
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
