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#AutoCAD to Amiga !
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OK John, fine. I only gave you my views. What you do now is your business
(literally). But I don't accept the argument about development costs
justifying a high price. Don't you think that every good quality
commercial program involves a large expenditure of time and resources?
Every product is priced based on certain factors. Manufactured products,
(automobiles, IC's, appliances, computers) have to have their prices set at
a minimum break-even point plus whatever the market will bear. And it's
all based on price elasticity, etc. If you spent $5000 developing the
program, and you sell it for (say) $500, then you only have to sell a dozen
or two copies to justify the cost. And maybe that's all you will sell – I
don't know. Would you sell hundreds of copies at $50? I don't know that
either.
If you don't think that my views are representative of your potential
customore base, then ignore them. But _you_ asked the question. I am a
professional. I use the Amiga for both professional and non-professional
purposes, but it's virtually all on my own budget, due to reasons I'd like
to change but can't change so easily. I design very sophisticated products
and talk to customers. Some of them can't pay for the product at the price
we must charge, so we work with them to suggest other solutions. I have
never preached or lectured a customer because he can't or won't pay the
price. Your question indicated that you were trying to do market research,
but your reply back to me indicates you've already made up your mind.
I'm sorry if I'm overreacting here, but the tone of your message sparked
these thoughts. Anyway, I'm still glad that you are working on these
utilities, and good luck with your whatever marketing strategy you choose.
$5000.00 to develop a program? It's only a couple of hundred byte program,
I assume, then. Not a _real_ program, right? Not one that takes 100's –>
1000's of hours to do? I don't know about YOU, but I only know a few _good_
programmers; and they get more than $5/hour. Actually, they _should_ be
getting in the area of 25$/hour at a _minimum_. Hard to price a program at
29.95 under those circumstances, unless you can sell one to everyone and
you have no overhead. –Ben–
Gee Ben…you ought to hire yourself out…you'd make a lot of
money at $25/hr for custom programming because that's cheap! Every place
around here doing custom programming is paying the programmer a minimum of
$40/hr for custom programming! In fact, the city just hired a company to
do a bit of work for us and their rates are from $80 to $125/hr.
Don – I wasn't talking about custom programming – I was talking about
programming for a living, in a steady job, with benefits, and so forth.
$100.00 an hour is moderate for one-shot custom work. –Ben–
Gee Ben…you ought to hire yourself out…you'd make a lot of
money at $25/hr for custom programming because that's cheap! Every place
around here doing custom programming is paying the programmer a minimum of
$40/hr for custom programming! In fact, the city just hired a company to
do a bit of work for us and their rates are from $80 to $125/hr.
John was telling me about the equipment he bought to develop the program,
which came to several thousand dollars (maybe more than $5K). If that was
only a tiny fraction of the development cost for his DXF conversion module,
then he shouldn't have brought up the equipment cost. Remember, Ben – John
was talking to me about this module for Interchange. Without belittling
the effort it takes to do _any_ program correctly, I don't think that it's
in the same category as writing a layout package from scratch.
Maybe that means that Ben priced his software too low. InterChange is
different than other programs in some respects – because it is modular, I'm
continually working on tools to manipulate and translate objects. I've got
a dozen other modules working in-house, waiting to be marketed. Marketing
costs money. Everything I write, every ounce of sweat into InterChange is
part of the development cost of this AutoCAD module.
Maybe that means that Ben priced his software too low. InterChange is
different than other programs in some respects – because it is modular, I'm
continually working on tools to manipulate and translate objects. I've got
a dozen other modules working in-house, waiting to be marketed. Marketing
costs money. Everything I write, every ounce of sweat into InterChange is
part of the development cost of this AutoCAD module.
I have _no_ idea, and wouldn't presume, for that reason. –Ben–
John was telling me about the equipment he bought to develop the program,
which came to several thousand dollars (maybe more than $5K). If that was
only a tiny fraction of the development cost for his DXF conversion module,
then he shouldn't have brought up the equipment cost. Remember, Ben – John
was talking to me about this module for Interchange. Without belittling
the effort it takes to do _any_ program correctly, I don't think that it's
in the same category as writing a layout package from scratch.
The $5K was just the hardware and software cost to upgrade my AT to
AutoCAD. It didn't account for paying me, or advertising, etc. which was my
entire point.
The $5K was just the hardware and software cost to upgrade my AT to
AutoCAD. It didn't account for paying me, or advertising, etc. which was my
entire point.
$5000.00 to develop a program? It's only a couple of hundred byte program,
I assume, then. Not a _real_ program, right? Not one that takes 100's –>
1000's of hours to do? I don't know about YOU, but I only know a few _good_
programmers; and they get more than $5/hour. Actually, they _should_ be
getting in the area of 25$/hour at a _minimum_. Hard to price a program at
29.95 under those circumstances, unless you can sell one to everyone and
you have no overhead. –Ben–
"I don't know" isn't good enough for me. I need hard facts and reasoning.
I know I need to do more than "pay for costs" if I'm to stay in business
in this market niche. If you're going to make money and get value from my
product, shouldn't we trade value for value? How much value will you get
from my converter?
"I don't know" isn't good enough for me. I need hard facts and reasoning.
I know I need to do more than "pay for costs" if I'm to stay in business
in this market niche. If you're going to make money and get value from my
product, shouldn't we trade value for value? How much value will you get
from my converter?