Software Prices!

[Technoid]

Is software prices to high?

[Guru]

Yes! The greatest blow to piratism would be if Micro$oft would lower there prices to for example XP home 50€, XP Pro 75€ office standard 50€ and pro 100€!

[ZokesPro]

Adobe software is expensive. And those pesky AutoCAD programs are expensive too.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Worst thing about software like Photoshop and AutoCAD is that they've been around FOREVER, it's not like each new version was completely made from scratch.

[Guru]

The good thing about Adobe Photoshop is that atleast they made a afordable lite version available to the normal users!

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Guru
Yes! The greatest blow to piratism would be if Micro$oft would lower there prices to for example XP home 50€, XP Pro 75€ office standard 50€ and pro 100€!

Can't agree more

[Byock]

Yup, have to agree. That is why piracy does so well. Anyone shelled out $50 for a game, to get home, and find out it is a piece of garbage? If a game is worth playing, I buy it. Pirate it, Try it, if I like it, Buy it, if not delete it. Seems fair to me.

[Jessterw]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
Worst thing about software like Photoshop and AutoCAD is that they've been around FOREVER, it's not like each new version was completely made from scratch.

That's why they have upgrade pricing I do agree that software prices are a little high. If you think about it, MS Office is probably one of the best priced software packages out there (at least of the closed source kind), given that in any given suite you can get 4+ applications for the same or less than Photoshop (with the exception of the pricey developer edition).

I think a good target price for Windows would be $100-$150 for the full version and $50-$100 for the upgrade (depending on edition). That would make it easier for home users especially.

I forsee Microsoft lowering prices in the near future as open source software becomes more prominent and actually starts to be sold more on a commercial level. However companies like Adobe, Autodesk, and Macromedia are in a position to be almost the sole provider of their type software (they obviously have competitors, but some are so often overlooked it doesn't matter, or they compete with each other as Adobe and Macromedia do), so it is unlikely they will lower their prices any time soon... unless their comes into play some worthy competitors (in their eyes). The biggest reason they charge what they do is because they know they can.

You have to wonder though, if MS lowered their prices on Windows and Office by a good margin, don't you think that some of MS's competitors would balk and make charges of MS trying to undercut them (ala IE vs. Netscape)?

[TnT]

"Industry standard" products are jacked up. I used AutoCAD for work and while it is a good program it definitely should not cost what it does. Funny thing about a lot of those programs is that a bunch of students pirate it to learn it to later get a job.

Although I'm not a big fan of pirating for normal use because it takes away from the alternative programs. For example Adobe Photoshop has several great alternatives such as Paint Shop Pro, the now defunct Picture Publisher and the GIMP. Anybody familiar with those other programs can do the same work as they could with Photoshop, but at a significant savings in money.

[Jessterw]

Originally posted by TnT
Although I'm not a big fan of pirating for normal use because it takes away from the alternative programs. For example Adobe Photoshop has several great alternatives such as Paint Shop Pro, the now defunct Picture Publisher and the GIMP. Anybody familiar with those other programs can do the same work as they could with Photoshop, but at a significant savings in money.

The problem is that alot of people don't know about them, and some of them just aren't as "polished" as Photoshop is (or appears to be). Sadly it's still true that if you don't have the shelf space then you're not going to do well with the average consumer, and thus you don't garner the market share that you may deserve. There's also the fact that many of us have been using these "Industry Standard" applications from the get go, often because they were the best available at the time or were the most widely used applications, thus we naturally continue to move on to the next versions of these applications.

[High_Jumbllama]

Way too high!

I was lucky though when buying Ulead Media Studio 5.2. I got it through the Matrox deal for only $250. Now if only I could get a backup of it. My CD-R can't burn sub-channel data.

[High_Jumbllama]

Originally posted by Guru
The good thing about Adobe Photoshop is that at least they made a affordable lite version available to the normal users!

The computer teacher at the school where I worked wanted top get a network version of photoshop. Even if such a monster existed it would have been beyond expensive. She had to settle for four copies of Photoshop Essentials.

Edit:
I love this new spellchecker!

[Pace]

Find some old magazines with AutoCAD or Photoshop on the cover CD, buy the upgrade

Don't know about the ones I mentioned, but I have Dreamweaver 1.2 around here which I'm going to find out if it would make me eligible for the Dreamweaver MX upgrade version.

P.

[UtwigMU]

The problem lies with business and home market:

For instance marketing agency or service bureau bills 15-20$ by the hour. Now most of those shops work 12h a day or more (one guy from local service bureau told me that he worked untill 7am and showed up again at 1pm the same day again).

Now a DTP rig:
1000-1500$ for the box
800-1000$ for the monitor (I saw a bureau having all Quatos except for the i-mac boss used for administration)
2000-3000$ for the licences (Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, InDesign, Pagemaker, Quark Express)
TOTAL = 4650$ average

4650/20 = 232.5 hours /12 = 19.375 days = about one working month. (consider that you upgrade hardware every few years and software upgrades cost about 30% of final licenses)

CAD rig
2000-4000$ for the box (mainly pro videocard overhead)
2000$ for monitors (yes plural)
~7000$ for AutoCAD and 3DStudio licence (or about same price for ArchiCAD licence)
TOTAL = 12.000$, architects bill 40$ by the hour here and my colleague who works in prominent bureau works from 9am to 9pm with 1 hour free for lunch = ~ 28 working days, upgrades again costing little compared to new full versions.

It's similar to gaming consoles costing a month or two worths pocket money.

Now a software company's meat market are professionals who use their products on a daily basis. The prices are not ridiculous for those people who charge normal prices for work.

So it's better for them to sell at higher price to few professionals which can be forced to licensing by industry standard software and threat of competition reporting them to BSA, while knowing that most home users (students, home users, users learning software who will later look for a job) will pirate their software than lowering their price and proabably not significantly increase their marketshare.

Also operating systems:-

- USA is the biggest market (Imagine getting computer bundled with some obscure Slovenian ISP in the states, while for instance I got some AOL coupons with my Windows 98 and Internet connection wizard defaults to some US ISP)

- USA has high GNP = people can be charged more
135 $ for an OS in country where 11.000$/year is considered edge of powerty is quite different than in country where 11.000$/year is considered higher middle class

Not to mention business, where people using the product actually make money on it.

That's why software companies to an extent tolerate piracy and impose strict control mainly on business and big pirates. Piracy = bigger marketshare = industry standard. Even in US which is more clean piracy - wise only 1 out of 4 copies is legal.

Imposing more strict control would:
- turn users to look for alternatives as in the case of Microsoft
- people who cannot afford licence (for instance Joe who designs his shelves for home in AutoCAD) would simply not buy it
- open door for free developers who could in the long range gain marketshare and start charging

[Jammrock]

When a new video game is released, 60% of all sales for a single title are done in the first week of sales. There are a very few minor expections to teh rule, like the Sims, Myth and a few Blizzard titles. This is why prices are so high initially, and then get drastically cut within 4-6 months of the game's release...unless it's a Blizzard game.

Jammrock