David Hage wrote:
In my humble opinion it must be that 90% of Sibelius users never used a
music notation program before (all those "it's fantastic, I press notes on
the keyboard and they come out on the screen" quotes I have heard). I would
submit that if the note spacing that Sibelius produces (especially with
multiple layers), is better, then they need their eyes testing.
Anyway rant over, I actually have a day off!
Unfortunately, simplicity sells. And if people are weaned on Sibelius (for example at school), they're first choice when they buy their own software will be Sibelius. And many people don't identify the limitations of the software, but rather they work within it (several times I've heard "I wanted to do XYZ but Sibelius wouldn't let me" from university-level composers). Finale needs to have *extra* attractiveness than Sibelius for first-time users, when at the minute it's well behind. Despite it's greater capabilities (I've picked up engraving jobs which were turned down by Sibelius users as 'not possible').
Finale doesn't need extra attractiveness -- out of the box, with simple entry turned on by default (the way it installs on my machine) it works as easily as Sibelius does. MakeMusic needs their woefully inadequate publicity and marketing departments to get off their duffs and put Finale in all those schools which either have no software or are using Sibelius. And I don't mean by touting non-features like MicNotator and Scanning capabilities.
I wouldn't be surprised to find (although I can't prove this and it is purely conjecture) that Sibelius is offering better deals to school labs, and I also wouldn't be surprised to find that Sibelius is sending free copies to undecided music teachers who are in charge of school labs, just to win the contract.
Sibelius is no more easy to use out of the box these days than Finale is. But Finale isn't pouring the resources (i.e. free copies of Finale and drastically reduced multi-licenses) into capturing the school market.
Owain is definitely right that whatever people use first is most likely what they will continue to use. Finale has to work harder to ensure that the notation software young musicians use first is Finale and they should leave off on their silly SmartMusic product! If those ever-so-impressionable young musicians learn how to use Finale in those school labs, they will buy Finale when they leave school and need to buy their own program.
Finale also needs to go after music colleges and schools so that incoming students who are forced to buy what the school requires will be forced to buy Finale.
MakeMusic's own press release on their finances admits that Finale is a relatively high-margin product, so why are they spending so much energy on the lower-margin SmartMusic?
Put Finale in middle and high schools, put Finale in colleges and music schools and there will be a much larger market for their upgrades as well as new purchases. Failure to do that simply hands the market over to Sibelius without a fight.
Heck, what does it actually cost MakeMusic to produce one installation disk of Finale? 50-cents? A dollar? They should be giving it away by the bucketfulls to schools, even to the point of sending around clinicians (I'm available Makemusic, are you listening?) to teach the teachers how to use the product and to offer to teach a class or two as an outside expert. It worked for Apple computers, and it appears to be working for Sibelius. There is no reason Sibelius (yes, I bought a copy and know from experience) should be even close to Finale in the notation field as far as market share goes.
Finale's Allegro and PrintMusic fill the needs of the casual user very nicely. How would it harm MakeMusic to give free copies of PrintMusic or even Allegro to every incoming freshman at some large music schools, even if the school demands they have Sibelius? It wouldn't take those students long to discover what a better program Finale really is. And they'd have to buy upgrades, either to the full-blown version (at an attractive price, MakeMusic!) or to newer versions of the same level product they received free.
Free enterprise and marketing are valuable tools, MakeMusic. You should start using them! Think of the tax write-off (at $99 per copy or whatever) the company could take if they gave away 10,000 free copies. And even if only half of them resulted in the purchase of the annual upgrade, that would wipe out the company's 2nd quarter loss right there! But with the $990,000 deduction for promotional costs, they could show a bigger loss and pay less taxes, all the while effectively wiping out the loss in their cash flow.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
