Joe Byrne
Newbie
Posts: 11
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« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2009, 01:52:45 PM » |
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Chris,
Tell you the truth, I personally wouldn't jump right into purchasing a .x upgrade. Not that I doubt it would be worthwhile, but I have to look at the economy of things. The stuff I want fixed in the designer are for convenience sake. I already know how to get around the problems. Therefore, assuming version 5 will include the designer upgrades from 4.x and given the fact that I've lived without those fixes this long, I'm not likely to jump into a paid .x upgrade, I'll just wait for the 5.0 release.
Along those same lines.... since I really can't think of any major changes I *need* to the runtime, I'm far more likely to hold back on 5.0 this time and wait for one of your super-sales. In the past, I didn't mind paying top dollar for the right to work with you during the development phase, but now that I've settled into the EZGUI mode of coding, and I've learned how to do the things I want that EZGUI hasn't provided, I'm far more likely to be patient and hold off on a major release update to save the $100.
I'm not saying this to change your philosophy of marketing, but from a customer's perspective, I thought you'd be interested to know. If it were me, I'd make a couple of marketing changes:
First I'd try to accurately gouge what sweet-spot is price wise. Rather than looking at what its value is, I'd concentrate on what dollar amount is more likely to attract those 'fence-sitters'. Seeing that EZGUI costs more than the compiler it needs to function, I have to be darn sure its worth the cost and that is not going to be easy.
Second, I'd make a limited time evaluation version available for free download. The reality of the software business mandates that the customer gets a chance to fairly use the product before committing to purchasing it. Even MS has gone this way. You can get any MS product you want for a 60-day evaluation no strings attached. I recently signed a contract for a fairly large and complex eccommerce web site. To keep the development costs low, I told the customer that I would use as much 'off-the-shelf' code as possible. I then went looking for the components I wanted. I fist looked at the basic feature set, if it did what I wanted, I looked at the cost. If it was within range, I looked for the evaluation button. If they offered an evaluation download (99% did), I tried the product. If they didn't have an evaluation, I skipped it and when on. The point being that I need to know that the code will work *for me*. Just because it has the feature set I want, and in the price range I'm willing to pay, I don't know that I will be able to use it for my needs until I try it out.
Third, I would be very purposeful about sales. PB does a sale every 18 months or so. Knowing that it'll be another year+ before I see discounts again, I'm more apt to jump on their sale. However, if I'm not in dire need of their product now, and there is a reasonable chance that another sale will happen in the next 2-3 months, heck,I'll just wait. Perhaps I'll find a different product in the mean time. This is the course I'll most likely be taking with v5. Even if you say there won't be any sales, history tells me that when you're sales start to stagnate, you'll put something together to jump start it again. It might be a year, it might only be 4 months, but either way, for $100 I'll take my chances. If I ever find that I *need* something in v5, I can always pay the regular price for it, right?
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