Mail Call
From: sjon
Subject: MT Promises
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 02:56:59 -0700 (PDT){quote}If anything, the history of software indicates just the opposite. I mean, most programs OpenSource or not, aren't around very long. {/quote} For a few programs that are crucial to business I agree with you. For others I agree more with Mark. These days -almost- no business survives without spreadsheet. So for spreadsheets there will always customers ready and able to pay. Same goes for text processing, web serving, fire walling etc.
Blogging software -for example- is not a crucial tool. I bet you can go back to notepad/vi if everybody puts a $500+ price tag on their software.) As you mention most programs aren't around very long (except some bug ridden DLLs in Windows of course -EvilGrin-) so when a free program comes along for a noncrucial task all the non-free programs get priced out of the market, not overnight but after a time. At the same time the market grows enormously because lots of new users jump in, free is a good introduction price. When the free program disappears most people either switch to another free program or just stop the activity -blogging- and move on to other things. The result is that very few people use the commercial program which means it either has to raise it's price to survive -downward spiral- or drop the price to -almost- free. Neither strategy will pay the bills. Thing is once people get used to having something free it's difficult to make them pay for the same thing again.
Aloha!