In article <smith.762297118 at phylo> smith at phylo.life.uiuc.edu (Steven Smith) writes:
> Having seen
>both sides of this issue, I can honestly say that the high price
>of software is not that these companies are "raking in profits", but
>that in order to get more money out than they invest, this is just
>what they have to sell it for. You can't cut prices ten fold if you
>will only sell five fold as many copies.
I don't know what I'm talking about, of course, but I've always been
frustrated by the high prices of these mega-packages and I know I'm not
alone. I have to wonder if the programers have really done any market
analysis and know, for a fact, that the ratio you site, 5:1, is really
what would happen if they marketed something at ten fold lower price. It
wouldn't even have to be the mega-package they're selling for > $1000. I
suspect that for every lab that's going to spend $1000 on a multifunction
package there will be more than 10 labs that will spend $100 on a part of
that package, or on something that hasn't cost the programer as much to
produce. Like I said, I don't know. Maybe they figure that the poorer
labs aren't going to spend any money at all on software.
