Author: Bert Seifriz
Date: 06:33:49 06/26/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 25, 1998 at 06:39:00, Dave Gomboc wrote: >On June 24, 1998 at 07:01:41, Bert Seifriz wrote: > >>On June 24, 1998 at 01:49:05, Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com) wrote: >> >>>On June 24, 1998 at 01:34:38, Jouni Uski wrote: >>> >>>>Latest CSS magazine has list about PC programs market shares (value?): >>>> >>>>Fritz 50 % >>>>Genius 20 % >>>>Chessmaster 20 % >>>>Rebel 5 % >>>>Others 5 % >>>> >>>>Probably list is only for Germany even if it's not told! But market share >>>>for Mchess,Hiarcs,Nimzo,Shredder is almost zero... >>>> >>>>Jouni >>> >>>It would be interesting to here what Gambitsoft and ICD >>>see as relative percentages. Of course, I'd understand >>>if they didn't feel free to comment. >>> >>>Richard >> >>I agree with Ed, that this statistics is not true. Question is >>how did they find out? We were not asked. Nobody knows >>for sure. Even if I know my numbers how should I know the numbers >>of other dealers? The only solution would be that all manufacturers >>tell their numbers, but they will not. >>Another question is which period of time is taken. 1 month, 1 year, >>5 years? >>Bert/gambitsoft.com > >Both Bert and Steve seem to think the numbers are not at all accurate. It would >be interesting if Bert and Steve got together and wrote a letter to the >magazine, and see if they will make a retraction! Then we would at least have a >better idea as to whether the magazine is just propaganda or not. > >Dave Gomboc The numbers in CSS 3/98 were in an article about Fritz 5. The main points of the article were the features of Fritz, not these statistics. The sold numbers stood there as an introduction to show which importance Fritz had reached. They were copied from a small article in the business journal Wirtschaftswoche nr. 22/1997, more than a year old and by no means new. These numbers appeared there in Wirtschaftswoche in connection with the Kasparov/Deep Blue match last year. At that time I (and Ossi Weiner) wrote a letter to the editor of Wirtschaftswoche. The author there had obviously not contacted any (chess) software dealers at all. I can only guess that he got the percentage points from ChessBase, at least he did not contradict. For me it is certain that all Fritz versions from 1 to 5 have not exceeded 50.000 copies, but from version to version the numbers increased quite likely. The Chessmaster brand name belonged to different companies in the past. At around version number 2000 (which started in 1986) they already claimed 200.000 sold copies. As written earlier here I read a sticker with 3 million copies sold, the last box, version 5500, I have at hand claims "over 4 million sold" copies. Now somehow I do not trust those ChessMaster numbers, sorry. But even when you divide them by 10 ChessMaster would still be another 10 times ahead of Fritz worldwide. (In Germany ChessMaster is definitely not a bestseller though!) It would in fact be also interesting to know more about other programs like M-Chess, Shredder, Nimzo, CS-Tal, Virtual, Zarkov, Hiarcs etc. etc. That they all together have only a market share of 5 percent is not at all realistic compared with our numbers. But no manufacturer will give you his numbers, so all comes down to fortune telling. And for the statistics in CSS you could cite the Italian proverb: Si non e vero, e bon trovato. If it is not true it is at least well made up. Bert/gambitsoft.com
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