DesktopX Pro Pricing Discussion

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

DesktopX Pro Pricing Discussion

Few products have gotten off to such an intense start. We're getting a lot of email from users who want DesktopX Pro but can't afford $499.

Their uses vary but boil down to this:

1) Being able to use for internal apps

2) Sending a "gadget" to a friend or family4 member.

3) Making widgets for personal use where they just want to run something they make on their various home machines and not worry whether they have DesktopX on all of them or not.

These are 3 types of people that we are not currently targeting with DesktopX Pro.

But what if we did this:

Have DesktopX Pro be $129 instead and put into the license that programs created with it may not be sold or used for marketing purposes?

So when you click to get DesktopX Pro, you would be presented with two options:

a) I will not be selling applications created with DesktopX Pro or using them for marketing purposes: $129

I will be using DesktopX Pro for commercial development: $499

The question is, would $129 still be "too high" for power users? Much less than $129 and it's really not worth it and gets too close to the Object Desktop price.

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RadialFX

Join Date 07/2001

+33

Ummmmm, BakerStreet? Is it something I said?

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I personally think that much like Flash can be recouped in one contract, in a year or so, I think Desktop X Pro 499 version will be the same way.

Pretty sure of that actually. Right now, it is not true unless you have alot of hustle (shoing people what it can do) and already have clients in the wings that you work for already.

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RadialFX : no, no , no

There are some others above that keep saying above and on the front page that you couldn't make your $499 back for the commercial license, and that is 'not the tool for the jobs', etc.

*cough* "I can't see the 499$ corporate version being worth the risk for a huge loss." *cough*

I think is easy to see how someone with even an average mind for business couldn't make their money back for the $499 version. My post was directed there, not at you.

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RadialFX

Join Date 07/2001

+33

Oooohhhhh! duh! he,he Yes, I agree. I can even see the potential of this developing into a total Interface development platform in the future. Also, if you are a systems programmer or in backend development or whatever, you've already spent $499 just to get started. Like many of the people in the skinning and interface enhancement/development community, I always look at things from a "Visionary" type perspective. A new skin starts out as a vision. From that perspective Brad is cutting us a heck of a deal at $499. Personally, when I look at initial investment I factor that with my vision of potential based on knowledge of exsisting industry, trends, history and current direction.
Taking all that in makes $499 look like a trip to Toys -R- Us. Non of this even makes note of the fact that my dumb hind end will spend 4 times that over the next year for crap I'll throw away the next!!

This is DEFINATLY something that I look at as potentially "Fathering" the future of GUI development.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

At this point I should just let Bakerstreet speak for me. He is saying the things on this topic that I'd like to say.

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Ok......bare with me because I may not really understand this. If Desktop X Pro is to be a commercial version of the home users Desktop X, then you need to concentrate on the commercial side of it only and do not concern yourself with someone wanting to send a widget to someone else who does not have the Pro version, or an upgrade to the home version that will allow the individual to utilize the widget set. You are developing, and offering, a version for commercial use and should concentrate solely on that which applies to the commercial industry. After all, you have a home user version already. Think of Adobe Photoshop, the price of which puts it in the category of commercial users and power users (who normally are not your everyday home users like me.) They did not offer two versions of Photoshop. It was only until the last year that they offered a product that was aimed at the home user, perhaps to compete with Paint Shop Pro, which has been in reality the home users cost option. I guess what I am saying is you have a competent Desktop X version for the home market and need to concentrate developement of your commercial version solely for the needs of the commercial market.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Which is what we're doing.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

The only problem I can imagine with it all is the possibility that the home-use version might be used commercially in some way and not adhere to the EULA and require some form of 'policing' just as warez distribution does for other products now...

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Join Date 03/2001

+23

In that case, my suggestion might work.

( previous post in this thread )

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paxx

Join Date 03/2001

Bakerstreet: point taken, thank you.

But I still don't see it, short-sighted as I am. I mean, I can see now a few skinners wanting to take the risk, but I see few actually getting the contracts and their money back. Look at Windowblinds. How many skinners sell branded skins for companies. Maybe 3 or 4? Now, if only a 499$ version of Windowblinds allowed skinners to sell such branded skins, I'm sure quite few skinners would try out the experience, but only a small handfull would get their cost back and more.

BTW: I'm not blasting Stardock here. Stardock can decide to change whatever price they want for their software. When a sold product is expensive, the vendor isn't to be blamed, but the client may be if he buys a product he can't affort.

Again, I could be wrong. It's just my opinion, but I'm far from being infaillible.

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Paxx: I have a hard time understanding when you say "few actually getting the contracts and their money back". You mean companies don't buy branded notepads, pens, baseball hats, or that they filch and don't pay for them?

Don't think in terms of some guy hanging out a shingle offering novelty EXEs at the flea market. Think of this as one more marketing service someone could provide among many. Compare the cost of hiring an in-house developer to brand handmade software to $499 and the minimal skill it would take an less skilled person to turn this stuff out with DesktopX. Beyond the wages of the guy who makes them, a company would have nothing invested in the added products beyond the original $499. A nutty good deal.

Branded giveaway items are a huge business, and with connectivity stuff like this would be tons more powerful as marketing tools. This would just be another item that could be offered.
[Message Edited]

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OK, well BakerStreet doesn't seem to think it would be OK for people to want the home version as a "toy", so I guess I'll "give it a rest now". *sigh*

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stockholm:

People tend to see 'pro' and think that it is just a more 'l33t' version of what they already have, instead of a feature they probably won't need. I noticed a couple of people that were asking for the price to be lowered that didn't seem to understand what the pro version even did. It is normally the people that beg for a lower price that later decide they didn't need it at all, oddly.

I just didn't think people would be satisfied with even the lowered cost if they could only use the exe files privately. Whether they will stick to that remains to be seen. Frogboy pointed out several reasonable uses, so I guess if people need it they'll buy it.

Isn't up to me anyway. Feel free to ignore me if I am an annoyance.

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paxx

Join Date 03/2001

Oh, I thought you meant that compnaies such as Pixtudio (for example) would buy DX Pro, and sell their objects to NVidia, who would in turn offer NVidia clocks for free. My point was that there are very few Pixtudio's out there who make it.
But what you suggest instead is that NVidia itself buys DX Pro to make to object themselves? OK, maybe so. Not sure though.

I actually work for a marketing agency, and I must admit I'd have a hard time convincing my boss to sell branded clocks to his clients. But then again, our clients are mostly in the construction/renovation business (windows, doors, sidings, etc). Not in the online business whatsoever.

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Argh. Sorry...OK, I see what you mean. Anyone wanna help remove this foot from my mouth now.

See I am thinking of some programs I've used in school like VB. You can get the academic versions for under $200, but you can't use those to make programs to sell (I don't think you can even make .exes, period.
You want the big toys, you gotta shell out the $800 or how ever much VB enterprise is now. So I am thinking of these two versions, like those.

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Paxx...I bet you sell alot of those naughty girl calenders huh?

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Paxx: No, that isn't what I mean. Your company doesn't MAKE the clocks you sell, do they? They get them from a supplier that offers many different things that can be branded. In your example, NVidia would hire your company, who would in turn hire a designer to make the graphic, which would then be shipped off to the folks that apply it to all the pens, t-shirts, etc. They could include branded software knick-knacks as a service along with the t-shirts, etc., that they offer to the your company to offer to your clients.

There are a great number of businesses that do what I describe, probably a dozen in my area. For those people who actually offer the items to be promotionally branded, $499 would be little to pay for a permanent item with no further overhead.

[Message Edited]

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