Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:21:40 10/10/98
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On October 10, 1998 at 12:21:50, Mark Rawlings wrote: [snip] >I think we will continue to see prices of the "professional" programs go down. >This probably won't hurt the programmers or the sales outlets, however, because >people will end up spending the same amount of money but buying more programs. >While I would not spend $120 every year for the latest program, I could see >buying 2 or 3 programs every year if they were only $25 or $30 each. It is interesting that 3*$30=$90, which is not far off from $120. I agree that there is clearly an "impulse buy" threshhold. Probably about 50 to 100$ for me. I don't think I would ever spend $400 for some chess hobby software [but I would spend $50 a year for ten years in a row!]. You would have to be really serious for spending $400 on hobby software (which I imagine some fraction of the population is). One opportunity for vendors is internet distribution. No media costs, no manuals, no shipping costs. Just get a credit card order and send the program and documentation over the wire. Microsoft already uses a similar technique with their site licensing, and it is a significant portion of their revenue. They just send a few CD's to a company and a license to install x-thousand copies. Another opportunity is to sell technical support for very low cost or free products. I don't particularly care for this idea, but I am pretty sure that some will draw money in this manner.
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