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Subject: Re: Zappa: Likely to be released free?

Author: Sandro Necchi

Date: 01:38:41 08/21/05

Go up one level in this thread


On August 21, 2005 at 03:12:46, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 21, 2005 at 02:43:07, Sandro Necchi wrote:
>
>>On August 20, 2005 at 18:53:25, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On August 20, 2005 at 17:06:56, Jonas Cohonas wrote:
>>>
>>>>>The average Joe is not important and I guess that there are going to be
>>>>>something like 10,000 buyers who are going to buy zappa for 50$ only as uci
>>>>>engine with no interface in the next year in case that it is sold.
>>>>>
>>>>>If 10$ of it is money that the programmer is going to earn then he can earn
>>>>>100,000$ for one year.
>>>>>
>>>>>Uri
>>>>
>>>>10.000 buyers?? i think that is waaay to high, i think it might sell 100-200
>>>>tops on a yearly basis. Also 50$ is way to high too for just the engine, 29.95$
>>>>max for that.
>>>>
>>>>Where did you get 10.000 from? you do realize that only the readers of this
>>>>forum, the winboard forum and a couple of others are potential buyers of an
>>>>engine like Zappa and out of these only a few hardcore testers and fanatics like
>>>>myself would actually buy just an engine.
>>>>
>>>>Well maybe i am wrong, but that figure Uri seems incredible at best.
>>>>
>>>>Jonas
>>>
>>>I do not think that only the readers of this forum and similiar forums are
>>>potential buyers.
>>>
>>>I have a friend who does not read these forums but I tell him if there is some
>>>new interesting engine to buy and he may use them in his correspondence games.
>>>
>>>Uri
>>
>>Uri,
>>
>>the market got quite smaller and smaller, so one can expect to sell some 2,000
>>to 3,000 units if distribution is set well and price is correct.
>>
>>Unfortunately most people wants free chess programs or believe what they have is
>>more then enough.
>>
>>I always told/wrote in computers chess magazines that this is a wrong approch
>>because a computer chess program should be considered as a sparring partner and
>>the strongest it is the best you can benefict, but most people do not want to
>>learn as they prefer to win regardless how strong they are.
>>
>>Sandro
>
>Thanks for the information.
>I guess that your information is based on experience in the last years so you
>know better than me.
>
>Note that I guess that the number of buyers will be even smaller relative to
>last years unless the commercial programmers can release programs that is at
>better than the best free programs on one processor and I guess that at least
>Junior and Shredder have a problem because Fabien told us that Fruit of WCCC
>still has search bugs and it is going to be improved so if you want to release
>new program in a few months then even the being slightly better than the level
>of fruit WCCC is not enough to be better than fruit of that time.

Well, even if I asked Stefan several times to improve the engine for the WCCC,
he believed Shredder was strong enough and decited to invest his time in a
different way.
I am sure he will work hard on the engine to make it better...so Shredder 10
will be stronger for sure...

>
>Uri

Sandro




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