Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Used DPAINT [I & II] for sale
Message-ID: <99107@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 89 18:37:45 GMT
References: <16386@oberon.USC.EDU> <6789@ecsvax.UUCP> <16404@oberon.USC.EDU> <16958@cup.portal.com> <16459@oberon.USC.EDU> <17050@cup.portal.com> <17146@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 46

In article <17146@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:
>SCENARIO 1: Deluxe Paint (Electronic Arts publisher, Dan Silva author)
>SCENARIO 2: A-Talk (Felsina Software, Marco Papa proprietor and author)

My disagreement with Thad's reasoning here is that he counts the "secondary
market" sales as _negative_ income. This is a fundamental flaw in his
reasoning. The point he trys to make is that selling off Dpaint I or 
A-Talk for $20, is $40 of *lost* sales to the developer. Which I disagree
strongly with. Rather here is a person who *WILL NEVER* buy this product
(at least legally) until someone sells them their "used" copy. Now at
this point Thad goes on in his _worst case_ senario that these people
will _never_ upgrade. Which in fact is also false. Many of them will
upgrade for _full price_.

The truth of the matter is that with 4 or 5 paint programs or a zillion
terminal emulator programs available the cash poor user is damned careful
about what he or she spends their money on. They might ask themselves "Why
buy A-Talk, when Vt100 is free?" Well here is an opportunity for them to
try it out "on the cheap" so to speak WITHOUT PIRATING IT! Now they use
it for a while and maybe they say "It's not worth it." So they resell the
package and the cycle repeats, or they say "Gee, this is great, 
professionally maintained by a full time staff, and look the newer 
version has so many neat new features this product is definitely 
worth it." Or maybe they just say "It's ok for $20, but I wouldn't 
pay full price for it." Ang go on about their merry way, never at 
risk of becoming a customer in the first place! 

Chuck's second law of Computer Users :
	"Anyone the uses a program on a regular basis will buy the 
	 update when it becomes available."

This expands the user base in a perfectly legal way, and those users
often go on to become "real" in the sense that they have paid real
money to you the developer for the latest version. The nice thing
about students is that when they graduate they usually get a real
job and in the computer business that often entails much more disposable
income. And when they get that job, and want to "get the best", if 
they have been using your software for 2 or 3 years (and they were
happy with it) they will most likely give you the business. 

Your entire argument strikes me as unsupportable. Sorry about that,

--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
"A most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"