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Subject: About prices...

Author: Ed Schröder

Date: 02:55:25 10/30/98


I assume everything I say will not be good enough so I will make it short.

Rebel10 customers who have bought before October 29 will get our first
PC program Gideon (1993) which we will baptize to REBEL 1.0 for free.
It's a really nice looking program for your collection.

Distribution via the Rebel Home Page after say 1-2 weeks as it takes
some time to make it ready.

Decisive will be if you have subscribed. I advice all of you who bought
Rebel10 and not have subscribed yet to go to:

  http://www.rebel.nl/intsub.htm

and subscribe over there. Deadline for the Gideon offer will be Friday
November 6, 1998 so one week from now.

About prices...

#1. Every date you pick for a price drop is never good for people who just
bought. The price had to fall (no choice, see below) so the sooner the
better meaning less victims of the price drop.

#2. It was our intention to sell Rebel10 for the normal price you are used
to pay since years despite the fact there was a tendency to lower prices
for chess software.

#3. We were unhappily surprised by the lowering of prices by two major
companies Mindscape and ChessBase. More over we saw this price drop
being advertised in all chess magazines at Rebel10's release time next
to our advertisement of $119.95.

#4. Decisive for yesterday's decision to match the price was the
information we received that another major producer of chess software
(Millennium 2000) dropped their price of a *new* product. This is new
and never happened before.

#5. Add up point 3 & 4, mix them, shake them and it is not so difficult
to see that the high prices of chess software as you are used to pay
since years can not be kept any longer. As Fernando correctly pointed
out in another posting we are indeed entering a new area concerning
end-user-prices for professional chess software. You can take my word
for it that if we would have known all of this on beforehand we
certainly would have released Rebel10 at yesterday's prices right away.

#6. As already explained, if you see this to happen then better react
immediately because the less victims you make.

Some thoughts and conclusions...

#1. The good news is of course that prices for chess software will lower
for good as I don't expect any producer of chess software will dare to ask
the old high prices for new released chess software any longer. So far so
good.

#2. On the other hand producers of chess software will see their income
drop while having the same costs.

#3. With the Rebel 1.0 offer we hope to compensate our faithful customers
a little who just have bought Rebel10. With our dealers we hope to find
an acceptable solution. Anyway don't blame them for the current price war
as there is really nothing they can do about.

- Ed Schroder -
Author of REBEL10



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