Author: r.c. richards
Date: 16:21:25 11/10/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 10, 2000 at 12:07:45, Fernando Villegas wrote: >My little analysis of the software chess market will not give me the nobel prize >on the field, but at leats lighted a little war between an electric engineering >and a master or doctor in english. It was not my purpose. I am a man of peace. >Should I know... The other guy has the Ph.D in EE. I've got a master's in English, not a Ph.D. I'm also a certified public accountant in the US. >Now respect what has been said of CM, I think it only support what I have said. >Chess master has been sucessuful, yes, but because: >a) low price, right. >b) great distribution gear, right. >c) being just one product of the manufacturer. So if it gives just a couple of >dollars of profit, why not. But it gives that because is part of a greater >company. Imagine Ed, with his discrete size, trying to sell an equivalent, that >is to say, trying to put a kind of Rebelmaster 16000 in the shells of all >software shops, toy sections in malls, etc. It's out of the question. He can't do it. Chessmaster is distributed through a system that's already in place and would remain in place with or without Chessmaster being a part of it--meaning that it costs little to distribute Chessmaster. Ed does his marketing on the web. There are some plus's and some minus's about the way he does this. The plus is that he gives away a very good version of his product for free. Another version of their product, plain old ChessPartner 4.something--they give that away as a demo. Anybody half interested in computer chess is going to download the free version of Rebel, though a lot of folks will pass on time bomb demos. The minus is that Ed's site is crap, totally amateurish. Another minus is that I don't believe I've ever seen one of Ed's banners at any other chess site. (He would want to upgrade his website before he advertised. There is no doubt that Ed could get a much better website for little expense, and it's hard to understand why he doesn't do that.) >I do not say this with nonchalance. I am afraid of the day I will not get a >program if it is not chessmaster 12.000 or Bilgates4000. Bill Gates got where he is by offering his product for cheap. Apple was always the better product, but it cost about 3 times as much money in 1994 and 1995. I'd almost be willing to bet that if Millenium, ChessBase, or Rebel hooked up with some distribution system and said to the people who run it, "Look, our product is as good as Chessmaster and we'll sell it for cheaper than Chessmaster," somebody would take them up on it. But they can't hardly expect anybody to take the time to distribute a program that sells for about double--and more--than Chessmaster and is not vastly superior. >I am afraid of the day >the only alternative will be amateur programs without the enormous amount of >work a commercial one has behind. And it's a no brainer to see that Shredder and Millennium are going to be the first to go. Yeah, I know I got a problem with Stefan suing Marcus. But at the same time, believe me, I'd much rather see Stefan continuing to write chess programs than database applications. And besides that, I'd hate to see him go just for his presence in this forum--I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only one who reads his posts. I'm sure I'm not the only won who can see he's got a strong desire to write a program that will kick everybody else's ass. When there are people here in this forum who haven't bought Shredder because of the price--and I'm not the only one (and I'll probably break down and get Shredder 5)--but when people here don't buy it because of it's price, who out there is going to buy it? RC
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