I agree in part on this conversation on the perceived value matter... However, there is ample money to be made in customer service and support... Why cant people understand that and create a sustainable model around it.. maybe offsite call support...
Additionally, an end of life product has some great support.. the bugs are known and limitations... makes it easy to close it out and say look this is why it is discounted... Further, if an old version is of no value seemingly, can I have them.. and if they are of value and impact sales, lets face it, they aren't going to go away.. meaning support is still needed...and a user base will always exist... Lastly, a whole bunch of people couldn't care less that the newest version has new features or is faster... there is a sea of already built work sites out there running fine on whatever version they started on and they should... Upselling and latest version sales is only applicable to tech folks who chase features, companies with very deep pockets (who will buy anything) and those firms that have no previous investment in web technologies... Sure there are some stragglers... Point being, there is some finite end in site. Growth is not infinite. So supporting earlier version seems lucrative in my mind at worst. I know many PHP programmers who likely would have been Cold Fusion folks if the price wasn't the issue... AS the free packages mature and people like RedHat keep giving things like a complete commerce suite away for free (and it is easy enough to get installed), the more likely and credible the challenge becomes and thus the game and flexibility better... I have completed darn near 100 CF sites in my career.. and had I not been so vocal cold fusion wouldn't have likely been used in 85 of them... Cost very often was a big enough issue to make it very annoying on average. -paris -----Original Message----- From: Matt Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2001 23:43 To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: death of coldfusion At 10:31 PM 12/30/2001 -0500, you wrote: >so now 4.0 could be free or at least deeply discounted... >creates new sales for dead products as well... FWIW, that is something that a lot of software companies tried these many years ago. It turns out to be a really bad call for the most part. It cannibalizes your current sales because people figure it is better to go for free than to pay for the latest. It forces you to support older versions which means more training for technicians. It also creates a perception that your software has no value, if you give it away for free you can't charge for it later. Corel used to do this. One of the more current models that is similar is Linux and some server products where there is a free version and a supported version. If you look at how those companies have faired, Macromedia's journey of the last few months looks like a church picnic. It is good to ask these things and to think out of the box, but this isn't the way. I like the idea of being able to buy features as you go. That is really cool. I don't know if there is any research on that, but it might be worth looking at. _________________________________________________________ Matt Brown Community Manager Macromedia (650) 481-4525 [EMAIL PROTECTED] FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists ______________________________________________________________________ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation � $99/Month � Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusiona FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
