>someone wrote > "Purchasing Synergy is simple. Just contact Weber Systems, let them know > you are interested, and our applications engineers will take it from > there. > > They will make sure that you get exactly the kind of installation, > setup, support package, and software that is best for you and your > company." > > At what price though?
Actually, I had the same reaction and asked why there was no posted price and said it made me distrustful and I said something to the effect of a Maxium I once wrote: Merchandise offered without price, is sure to cost more than it is worth. -kps His reply is that if he posts a price- the next day BobCAD sets a price $1 less etc. Weber Systems is wrong in their philosophy(I'm an objectivist<g>). There is a move all over the place to charge different people different amounts - even Amazon.com is doing this - they look at what books you bought in the past - how many you did not buy and then set a price just for you. The same goods at discount chain stores will have different prices in different neighbor hoods. In the end these practices anger customers - make the customers feel they were taken and comes off as sleazy - but for right now the public hasn't caught on. So the bottom line is you can probably get a very good price if you haggle with Weber Systems - they just don't want the public to know the street price. BobCAD on the other hand, was using marketing practices that smell of Scientology and there seems to be a consensus that the software stinks. All these software vendors seem to take this approach: get people in very cheap - the real investment is learning the software - once you have that sunk cost you are unlikely to change and you will pay dearly for new features. I once had a circuit-board CAD package - paid yearly support so I would get all the new features - they came out with new features, but pretended it was a new program - if I wanted to upgrade I would have to fork out thousands more. The best thing about Synergy is it was originally written for unix and now Linux so there is no problem running it on the same box as EMC. They could own the market if they went open-source and sold support. A lot of CAD/CAM programs end up pirated because the cost is really too high and people feel they have been screwed. They don't get any money from the ones that steal the software so the price gets even higher - if it was open and they were selling support, there is a different money stream, chances to broker design services - sell related equipment with support site adds. In the end, most of these closed source packages will either become incredibly specialized or die - open source projects are advancing - in the circuit board world there is now kicad - and it is now better than many of the commercial packages. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karl Schmidt EMail k...@xtronics.com Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://xtronics.com 3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089 Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434 Postmodernism: nihilism in drag. -kps -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
