Re: Personal edition as advertising

From: Walter (walterk1_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 12/03/03 

Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 06:25:38 -0500

Nick Hodges (TeamB) wrote:

>On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 21:40:37 -0500, Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net>
>wrote:
>
>
>
>>The alternative, as I said, is that people will choose other tools than
>>Delphi.
>>
>>
>
>Well, that's a given. The key is, given that, how do you make money?
>Remember, they have to sell around 10 personals to make the same money
>as one professional. In addition, they have the expenses of 9
>additional customers. An additional nine sales is a +lot+ of sales
>to make up for every professional sale lost.
>
>
I can understand the concept that a Standard edition might cause loss
of sales of the current entry-level edition (Pro). And I'm sympathetic
to their bottom-line.

But somewhere along the way, Borland/Delphi needs "new blood"
in its customer base. A $999 entry level is imho too pricey to bring
in the odd curious computer programmer, and there needs to be an
entry level priced to pull in people curious to try it out.

About the Personal edition being useless, I've not tried D7PE, but I
did play with D6PE and felt it was not useful (compared to the D3SE
I use). I suppose that D6PE being free, it might be good for someone
who is new to Delphi to learn with, but I won't pay even $99 for D7PE
if I can't deploy/sell an app with it. As I wrote in a previous message,
(I believe) there's an *art* to offering a product line with each upgrade
model having more features than the lower grade model, and setting
the price to maximize buyers and ulitmate product.

Do you sell lemonaide for 25 cents a cup or $1000 a cup? The lesser
price will open up the product to more customers, but then you'll not
make as much money if you're located at a place were people are
willing and able to pay $1000. The art is in offering a range of cups
of lemonaide that cater to different customer ranges. So you might
loose a sale of a more pricey cup when a customer who can afford
the larger cup only needs/wants the smaller, but that's just life and
business.

It does not appear to me that Borland can continue, long-term, selling
only $1000 and up cups of lemonaide. They are not on a desert
island with a captive, rich customer base. They are competing against
a wide range of other options, including Bill's Coolaide Stand which
offers a number of products all at a very good price. The not-so-
rich will choose the water fountain (freeware) or the coolaide
because they can't see the need to spend $1000 for fresh-squeezed
lemonaide - even if it is much better.

I don't see that offering a $99 SE would kill all $999 Pro sales - not
if the feature mix were set properly. Borland would loose a subset,
those that only need basic features maybe, but are forced to spend
the $999 to get it, but not all, not even most if done properly. The
upside to a $99 SE would be that many more people would look
at and some would upgrade to Pro and maybe recommend Delphi.
Basic advertizing it seems to me. It's not a ten-to-one proposition.

Just like a pizza place offering coupons for $2 off, business is not
about maximizing the profit on every pizza sold, but in getting more
people to try it and recommend it to their friends, thus in the long
run earning more money. A Standard edition is not quite like a
coupon, maybe more like a slice of pizza, but the idea is to get
more people in the door. Delphi's prices are too expensive for
most people to come in the door.

>You can have D7 for $99. Why isn't that good enough for you?
>
>
I don't need it for what I do, and I can sell an app with D3SE where
I can't with D7PE. And, putting myself in the shoes of a prosective
buyer, I'd not spend money on anything I couldn't use for real/paying
work. Borland doesn't need to get in a price war with MS, they just
(ought for their own sake, imho) offer an entry level product (with
right to sell apps!!) at a similar price in order to be considered by new/
potential customers.

== Issue beaten to death == I think I'll let it go from this point on...

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