The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Always an interesting debate. There are those who take the moral 
high ground and say with great authority how wrong it is. Then there 
are those in the middle who I feel are much more accurate in their 
standing and then there are those who just leech everything and 
ultimately do cost the developer money.

I am in the middle ground. I have software I have paid for and I 
have software I am evaluating. The trouble is, that the software is 
too expensive in the first place. Developers argue that they have to 
price it high to combat the piracy, yet give away hundreds of copies 
in order to get the software into the mainstream in the first place. 
I evaluate software. If I like it and it is within my budget then I 
will buy it. 

The other thing for us in the UK to combat is that the software 
costs up to 50% more over here.

For example Cubase new version top of the line whatever it is called 
costs close to £500. That's $870. Would I pay that for a glorified 
software sequencer. Not on your life. Their argument is that in 
order to make a profit, they must sell at that price. But the price 
limits sales. Selling 100 at $1 margin is the same as selling 50 at 
$2 margin. More people would buy it if the cost was lower, that's a 
fact. If the program is good, the more people that use it, generates 
more sales by recommendation. Thats another fact.

You better believe they make tons of profit from this software. They 
are of course entitled too. That's what business is all about. But 
if they make excessive profits on something, that should be 
reflected in a much cheaper upgrade path.

For example, my last company almost got into real trouble just 
keeping up to speed with software upgrades. We ran a 20 strong pre 
press department. Pre press means you need to have the latest 
version of all the graphics software just to make sure you can meet 
your customers demands. In one year alone, Quark Express updates on 
12 Macs cost £7,600 ($13,200). Thats just one program!! In order to 
keep everything legal, we purchased all the upgrades for all the 
macs. We could have just purhased 6 and doubled them up, but no we 
did the right thing. Well doing the right thing cost jobs as a 
downturn in work meant we had to sacrifice people. Saving on the 
$100,000 softare bill would have saved jobs.

So all you developers can cry and weep all you want. Reduce the 
cost, increase the sales and pile those excessive profits into a far 
cheaper upgrade path and all in the world will be well again.

Rant over.

V