CompuServe Messages

Tim, I haven't the vaguest idea what your product is about, but I have some observations on the implications of your pricing proposal. 1. Your pricing structure assumes that you know my business. It has to. If you are to police your licensing like you are attempting to, then you MUST make value judgements about all the licensees, even if the judgement you are making is to accept our characterization of our business. And if your judgement differs from mine (and you challenge me), the unstated implication is that I'm a liar, or cheat, or ignorant of my own business. I would resent these implications, even subconciously. I would be motivated to find another supplier, even home-grow one, in order to avoid dealing with one who makes me feel uneasy. I have two good friends in entirely different lines of work who are feeling *dissed* by their suppliers for reasons similar to this. 2. How can you tell who has the greatest ability to pay? A supermarket may appear to have bundles of cash lying about, after all, look at all the food they throw out. Yet, their margins are only about 1%. Ford may make $5 billion profit, but they are required to fork that over to their shareholders. What is ILM's ability to pay? How can YOU tell? 3. Rather than engaging in such amphigory about *use permits*, which may not be legally enforceable (what is 'limited commercial' after all) the only way to retrieve your investment would be to make the best products priced at the highest level. That way, only those whose apps require the highest quality would be forced to crowbar out the bucks. 4. If nobody buys at the highest level, then the market is signalling you to either lower your price, or lower the quality. After all, whereas I would truly love a PC with quad Pentium-100s and 512 Mb of RAM, the fact is that I really don't need it, my work is satisfactorily done using lower performance equipment. Remember how most engineering is done, anyway: Calculate to the angstrom. Specify to the micron. Measure with a micrometer. Mark with a crayon. Cut with a chainsaw. Putty and shim to fit. Paint to match.