On the other hand, my wireless phone is not complex because it is not a mature technology, but because it is a multi-purpose device. In addition to connecting me with someone else for the purpose of communication, it keeps a three list of phone numbers, those I've called, those I've received calls from, and those who have tried to call me, and not been connected while the phone is powered up. It also has a calendar, datebook, games, calculator,.and perhaps a number of other features. I submit that the wireless phone is not complex because it is immature technology, but because it is a complicated tool. In like manner, Finale is not a complicated because it is an immature product, Finale is a complicated because it does many things, and ibecause it does many things, it will still be complicated even whin it is a "mature technology".
There is, however, another difference between land-line and wireless telephony that bears on the situation. For most of the history of land-line telephony, you did not own your telephone. Even though the instrument was in your living room, it was owned by the service provide, or by anther entity, from who you leased the equipment, and paid a recurring fee to the owner to use the equipment, assuring the equipment provider of a continuing revenue stream. In the case of wireless phones, I thing that almost everyone has always owned the telephone equipment they used, and if the manufacturers of equipment are to sustain a revenue stream, they must resort to other things: feature creep, and designed-in obsolesence.
The user agreement notwithstanding, I suspect that most of see Finale as something we "own", and would be unwilling to pay an annual fee to continue to use the software, even though many types of commercial software are provided under just this basis: one company I worked for had a software system.with a security feature that required that a new activation code be entered during a specfied time period (I think between 1201 PM on the last day of one month, and 1159AM on the first day of the next one) in order to use the software. The vendor providing that software had a steady revenue stream, and when bugs were found, patches were distributed immediately. Would any of us be willing to use Finale if it were provided on this bases, where you had to pay a monthly fee ($10.00 a month, $100 per year) in order to continue to use the software? I suspect not. I suspect we would all continue to use one of our old versions, and start skipping every upgrade.
So what choice has MakeMusic! if they want to keep their customer base somewhat satisfied, and at the same time maintain a regular revenue stream?
Annual Upgrades.
And how to get people to buy annual upgrades?
Feature creep.
As I see it, the only alternative to annual upgrades and feature creep is mandatory annual license fees, and I'm not sure that this is a viable alternative. For one thing, other software is also undergoing feature creep; for example, there are sequencing programs which to the best of my knowledge did not used to do any notation, which now produce rudimentary notational output, and of course, Sibelius is undergoing feature creep, as well, and both of these matters create market pressure for Finale to engage in feature creep for competitive reasons. Second, I'm not sure that there are enough users who would accept the notion of a mandatory annual license fee to make this a viable business model for MakeMusic. How many of you who are not upgrading to 2k5 would be willing to pay the same price as the upgrade to continue using 2k4?
I would. I consider that the money I send to Eden Prairie every year is a annual license fee for my continued use of 2k, and that the priviledge of using the new and improved versions 2k1, 2k2, 2k3, 2k4, and 2k5, are an expression of appreciation by MakeMusic! for my continued support.
ns
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
