Outrageous Price of Programming Tools
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Is it just me, or has programming as a hobby gotten out of reach of most (if not all) of us? I yearn for the days of $40 compilers and $30 tools. Many of the tools manufacturers claim "Oh, but we give you the source code!". Well la-dee-freakin-da. How many times has anyone here taken a set of 3rd party source, modified it, and been rudely brought back into line with the next tool upgrade/update? What good did it do to modify the source? So what's the point in having the source available. As a programmer, I would be happy with binary LIB or DLL files, and don't really care for source code. Here's a few examples: Dundas Ultimate TCP/IP 3.0 - $699 (C++ version) Stingray Objective Toolkit - $660 Rogue wave math.h - $980 As a professional developer in a corporate environment, I've seen managers openly gasp at the cost of these tools (especially when we're dealing with multiple seats at a given site). As a private individual who wants to stay current, I have NO HOPE of doing so because of the prohibitive costs involved with purchasing these tools. The cost is WAY too high for the level of support we get (even as a corporate customer), so why are we made to pay so much?
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Is it just me, or has programming as a hobby gotten out of reach of most (if not all) of us? I yearn for the days of $40 compilers and $30 tools. Many of the tools manufacturers claim "Oh, but we give you the source code!". Well la-dee-freakin-da. How many times has anyone here taken a set of 3rd party source, modified it, and been rudely brought back into line with the next tool upgrade/update? What good did it do to modify the source? So what's the point in having the source available. As a programmer, I would be happy with binary LIB or DLL files, and don't really care for source code. Here's a few examples: Dundas Ultimate TCP/IP 3.0 - $699 (C++ version) Stingray Objective Toolkit - $660 Rogue wave math.h - $980 As a professional developer in a corporate environment, I've seen managers openly gasp at the cost of these tools (especially when we're dealing with multiple seats at a given site). As a private individual who wants to stay current, I have NO HOPE of doing so because of the prohibitive costs involved with purchasing these tools. The cost is WAY too high for the level of support we get (even as a corporate customer), so why are we made to pay so much?
First of all, tools like Objective Toolkit represent 10's of thousands of man hours of work (including manuals, marketing, etc..). And they appeal to only a very small subset of the computer users (developers). Someone like Stingray can only hope to sell a few thousand copies (maybe a few 10's of thousands). Then when you add up all the hours spent developing the product, and divide by the number of potential users, then add in expenses and a certain amount of profit, you see why development tools are so expensive. Then, consider how much money these tools SAVE your company if they were to pay you and other developers to implement the features provided. I think it's safe to say that even if you implemented ONE feature yourself, you're probably at about the same cost as buying the whole toolkit. $980 is not a lot of money when the typical programmer costs $100+ an hour (when you add in benefits, space taken, hardware, training, etc..).
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First of all, tools like Objective Toolkit represent 10's of thousands of man hours of work (including manuals, marketing, etc..). And they appeal to only a very small subset of the computer users (developers). Someone like Stingray can only hope to sell a few thousand copies (maybe a few 10's of thousands). Then when you add up all the hours spent developing the product, and divide by the number of potential users, then add in expenses and a certain amount of profit, you see why development tools are so expensive. Then, consider how much money these tools SAVE your company if they were to pay you and other developers to implement the features provided. I think it's safe to say that even if you implemented ONE feature yourself, you're probably at about the same cost as buying the whole toolkit. $980 is not a lot of money when the typical programmer costs $100+ an hour (when you add in benefits, space taken, hardware, training, etc..).
I'm not talking about being an employee of a company that can afford to spend the money. I'm talking about being a free-range programmer who would like to take advantage of these very same programming tools (sans source code) at a very reduced price. I can't afford these tools if I want to have them at home. That was point. And I'm fully aware of the "thousands of man-hours blah blah blah". For the kind of money they ask us to spend, we should get live talk-to-me-now tech support too, not that leave a message on our web-based tech support board and you may get an acceptable answer within 72 hours crap (but I digress).
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I'm not talking about being an employee of a company that can afford to spend the money. I'm talking about being a free-range programmer who would like to take advantage of these very same programming tools (sans source code) at a very reduced price. I can't afford these tools if I want to have them at home. That was point. And I'm fully aware of the "thousands of man-hours blah blah blah". For the kind of money they ask us to spend, we should get live talk-to-me-now tech support too, not that leave a message on our web-based tech support board and you may get an acceptable answer within 72 hours crap (but I digress).
Whether or not they give you source is really irrelevant to the fact that it took them X number of hours to develop the code in the first place. Divide X by Y, the number of licenses sold and add Z, the cost of packaging, marketing, distribution, etc... and you get the cost of the product for the tool developer to produce. They cannot sell it any cheaper than that or they lose money, with or without source. And that is without making ANY profit. Chances are, even this number would be far more than you are willing to pay. Simply put, development tools do not have the kind of amortization of costs associated with high volume software like Office. I'll throw numbers out of thin air. Say it costs me $100,000 to develop, market, package, distribute, etc.. a product. I have a total market of 1000 users that will probably buy my product. I cannot sell the product for less than $100 or I will lose money. If I want to stay in business while I upgrade the product in the next cycle, I need to make profit to cover the development time. If it costs me another $100,000 to develop the next version, I need at least a 100% profit, so now I have to sell the product for $200 in order to just break even. That will not give me enough cash to fund development of different products to diversify my market... as you can see, the costs add up quickly.
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Whether or not they give you source is really irrelevant to the fact that it took them X number of hours to develop the code in the first place. Divide X by Y, the number of licenses sold and add Z, the cost of packaging, marketing, distribution, etc... and you get the cost of the product for the tool developer to produce. They cannot sell it any cheaper than that or they lose money, with or without source. And that is without making ANY profit. Chances are, even this number would be far more than you are willing to pay. Simply put, development tools do not have the kind of amortization of costs associated with high volume software like Office. I'll throw numbers out of thin air. Say it costs me $100,000 to develop, market, package, distribute, etc.. a product. I have a total market of 1000 users that will probably buy my product. I cannot sell the product for less than $100 or I will lose money. If I want to stay in business while I upgrade the product in the next cycle, I need to make profit to cover the development time. If it costs me another $100,000 to develop the next version, I need at least a 100% profit, so now I have to sell the product for $200 in order to just break even. That will not give me enough cash to fund development of different products to diversify my market... as you can see, the costs add up quickly.
You're using coporate numbers - if you take that same product, and drop the price from $100 to $75 you could potentially DOUBLE your user base and realize increased revenue as a result, netting and additional $50,000. Would you rather have 1000 customers or 2000? What I'm trying to get at is that if the company has a rep for good support, and if their tools work as advertised, and if their prices are low enough to keep the hobby/home programmers in the game, the company and their products will remain viable. And I used the "because we give you source code" example because that's *precisely* what the tools manufacturers used on me when I ask them why their tools are so expensive. Stingray even tried to convince me that their web-based support was another reason. What a crock of shit...
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You're using coporate numbers - if you take that same product, and drop the price from $100 to $75 you could potentially DOUBLE your user base and realize increased revenue as a result, netting and additional $50,000. Would you rather have 1000 customers or 2000? What I'm trying to get at is that if the company has a rep for good support, and if their tools work as advertised, and if their prices are low enough to keep the hobby/home programmers in the game, the company and their products will remain viable. And I used the "because we give you source code" example because that's *precisely* what the tools manufacturers used on me when I ask them why their tools are so expensive. Stingray even tried to convince me that their web-based support was another reason. What a crock of shit...
John, FWIW, I agree with you. I certainly miss the days of $30 tools (which was about 20 years ago), but for a number of reasons I think those days are long gone. The economics of writing these tools just don't support running any kind of *real* business based on selling a $75 dollar tool. I know, we started off selling the original Ultimate Grid for $99. Don't forget that the costs that go into software products are not all variable. For example if it costs you $50 to provide the product (and trust me they are much higher than that) then you'd have to double sales just to make the same money. Problem is you need to hire good people to support, document, and enhance products, and good people are very, very hard to find. It would be ideal if the "you make a better mousetrap and the world comes knocking on your door" approached worked, but in reality it just doesn't. The moment someone pays *anything* for a product they expect (and deserve) top-notch support, and providing that support is expensive. What we've found over the years is the demand for programming tools is fairly inelastic. People that have a true problem to solve see the value in the tool and will cost justify it against the competition and internal development, and no matter how you slice it, $1000 for a tool that even saves 1-2 days of actual development is a good investment. I also agree with you that having access to the products to evaluate (and use) outside of an actual corporate or consutling development project should be faciliated. We've been working in that direction for some time, and many of our products (TCP/IP ActiveX, Dundas Chart, etc.) but as I'm sure you can understand it's pretty hard to offer that kind of opportunity with source code products like Ultimate Toolbox, and Ultimate Grid.
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John, FWIW, I agree with you. I certainly miss the days of $30 tools (which was about 20 years ago), but for a number of reasons I think those days are long gone. The economics of writing these tools just don't support running any kind of *real* business based on selling a $75 dollar tool. I know, we started off selling the original Ultimate Grid for $99. Don't forget that the costs that go into software products are not all variable. For example if it costs you $50 to provide the product (and trust me they are much higher than that) then you'd have to double sales just to make the same money. Problem is you need to hire good people to support, document, and enhance products, and good people are very, very hard to find. It would be ideal if the "you make a better mousetrap and the world comes knocking on your door" approached worked, but in reality it just doesn't. The moment someone pays *anything* for a product they expect (and deserve) top-notch support, and providing that support is expensive. What we've found over the years is the demand for programming tools is fairly inelastic. People that have a true problem to solve see the value in the tool and will cost justify it against the competition and internal development, and no matter how you slice it, $1000 for a tool that even saves 1-2 days of actual development is a good investment. I also agree with you that having access to the products to evaluate (and use) outside of an actual corporate or consutling development project should be faciliated. We've been working in that direction for some time, and many of our products (TCP/IP ActiveX, Dundas Chart, etc.) but as I'm sure you can understand it's pretty hard to offer that kind of opportunity with source code products like Ultimate Toolbox, and Ultimate Grid.
Of course you could offer a library only version with built in nags for testing. If you make extensive use of templates though, that could be a problem.
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You're using coporate numbers - if you take that same product, and drop the price from $100 to $75 you could potentially DOUBLE your user base and realize increased revenue as a result, netting and additional $50,000. Would you rather have 1000 customers or 2000? What I'm trying to get at is that if the company has a rep for good support, and if their tools work as advertised, and if their prices are low enough to keep the hobby/home programmers in the game, the company and their products will remain viable. And I used the "because we give you source code" example because that's *precisely* what the tools manufacturers used on me when I ask them why their tools are so expensive. Stingray even tried to convince me that their web-based support was another reason. What a crock of shit...
I'm not using "corporate numbers" (whatever that is). I'm talking about raw numbers. Companies will not sell you a product at a loss just because you can't afford it. Cutting prices will not double your sales. Generally speaking, someone that will buy a $75 product will buy a $100 product (they may grumble about it, but they will). Conversely, someone that won't buy a $100 product probably won't buy a $75 product either. In order to increase your sales, you must increase your advertising, which has diminishing returns (and increases the cost of your product). I agree with you about technical support. Stingray's technical support is quite poor most of the time, though they have some really good products. Just because some idiot sales guy at Stingray tells you that products cost alot because they give your source, doesn't mean it's true. It costs a lot to develop the product, and that's where the vast majority of the cost of the product comes from, not giving you source for it. These products are based on need and cost effectiveness. I can write anything in Objective Toolkit or Ultimate MFC Toolbox or whatever myself, but is it cost effective to do so? Sometimes. But sometimes it's not. If you don't like the cost of the product, write the code yourself. Or would that be too expensive?
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Of course you could offer a library only version with built in nags for testing. If you make extensive use of templates though, that could be a problem.
We previously offered library versions of both our Ultimate Grid and Ultimate TCP/IP libraries, for a little less than 1/2 the source code price. About 1 in 25 sales were of the library version, so we discontinued that as a sales approach. We do offer binary versions of many of our products (like Ultimate TCP/IP and Ultimate Grid), in the form of ActiveX controls. Far and away however developers select our source code products if they are C++ developers. If they develop in ASP or VB, they choose ActiveX, very, very rarely will we find someone who wants to use the ActiveX controls in a C++ application. I'm certainly all ears however, and certainly more than happy to debate a pricing model that better fits your needs.
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We previously offered library versions of both our Ultimate Grid and Ultimate TCP/IP libraries, for a little less than 1/2 the source code price. About 1 in 25 sales were of the library version, so we discontinued that as a sales approach. We do offer binary versions of many of our products (like Ultimate TCP/IP and Ultimate Grid), in the form of ActiveX controls. Far and away however developers select our source code products if they are C++ developers. If they develop in ASP or VB, they choose ActiveX, very, very rarely will we find someone who wants to use the ActiveX controls in a C++ application. I'm certainly all ears however, and certainly more than happy to debate a pricing model that better fits your needs.
We were talking about "trial-ware" for a product that normally ships with source code. So you can try it out and see if it fits your needs. Not a library only commercial version.
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We were talking about "trial-ware" for a product that normally ships with source code. So you can try it out and see if it fits your needs. Not a library only commercial version.
I understand that. I was responding in the theme of the overall thread that is speaking about the high cost of development tools, more than the lib version for try-before-you-buy however. All of our recent releases (Dundas Chart, Dundas TCP/IP Activex, etc.) are provided as eval versions as you describe, so fundamentally I agree that evals are good. David
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Is it just me, or has programming as a hobby gotten out of reach of most (if not all) of us? I yearn for the days of $40 compilers and $30 tools. Many of the tools manufacturers claim "Oh, but we give you the source code!". Well la-dee-freakin-da. How many times has anyone here taken a set of 3rd party source, modified it, and been rudely brought back into line with the next tool upgrade/update? What good did it do to modify the source? So what's the point in having the source available. As a programmer, I would be happy with binary LIB or DLL files, and don't really care for source code. Here's a few examples: Dundas Ultimate TCP/IP 3.0 - $699 (C++ version) Stingray Objective Toolkit - $660 Rogue wave math.h - $980 As a professional developer in a corporate environment, I've seen managers openly gasp at the cost of these tools (especially when we're dealing with multiple seats at a given site). As a private individual who wants to stay current, I have NO HOPE of doing so because of the prohibitive costs involved with purchasing these tools. The cost is WAY too high for the level of support we get (even as a corporate customer), so why are we made to pay so much?
Hi, I think that part of the fault lies in the magazines and catalog vendors. When I was creating and selling development products, I was advertising in various magazines and catalogs. In 1993, Dr. Dobbs was charging about $5000 for a full page color ad. Distributors like Programmer's Shop and Programmer's Connection wanted a lot of money and hefty discounts for their ads. When Miller Freeman bought Dr Dobbs, they raised the price of ads by a huge amount. Since I stopped selling programming products in 1995, I have stopped tracking magazine and catalog ad rates, but I am sure that they have more than doubled since then. I have not subscribed to the developer mags in a few years, and I have no idea what mags are still in business. But, if Miller Freeman has a monopoly on all of them, I can bet you that they are contributing mightly to the high cost of programming tools. -marc
