dhbailey wrote:
If Noel would get irritated over finding that someone paid half what
he paid for Finale, I wonder how he treats his academic and
theological pals? They pay significantly less for it.
Noel has no issue with academic and theological pals, since he was
entitled to, and did, purchase his original copy at the price publicly
announced for these uses. Noel does, however, see a significant
difference between a publicly announced educational / theological
discount on the one hand, and on the other, an upgrade price offered
(even if only one time, and for a limited time) to a particular subset.
It's not that S~ can't do this if they wish. The licenses are theirs to
do with as they wish; it is their prerogative, should they choose to do
so, to can pay users on the Isle of Man to upgrade. If I were a user,
though, such a policy would cause several questions in my mind, even if
I were part of the privileged class (as I am in the case of the current
offer from S~: I'm a Finale User, and live in the Western Hemisphere).
First and foremost would be the question, that if Sibelius is as good as
they claim it is, why are they offering it so cheaply? (And for the
record, I read Joel's article, so I know that there may be any number of
reasons.) But the question has to be considered in light of another
fact. Based upon current inquiries, everyone, everywhere in the world
seems to pay about the same for Finale 2k8: the new user, non-discounted
price for Finale is about $600 in the U.S., and a bit more than that
according to the UK sites I saw, given that last time I checked, the
exchange was 1 Pound Sterling to 2 US dollars. Based upon that same
exchange rate, and based upon prices seen on websites for new user,
non-discounted Sibelius 5.0 (Just the software, no add-ins) users in the
U.S. paid half as much for the software as users in the UK. The software
is about $600 in the U.S., and about 600 Pounds in GB, so taking to
account the exchange rate, users in the U.S. are already paying half the
price of users elsewhere. The same pricing seems to hold true for
upgrade versions, too. The upgrade price seems to be the same number of
dollars in the U.S. as it is in pounds in the UK, so that at full
upgrade price, the price charged US users is half the price charged to
UK users.
It just seems to me that the practice makes a statement that reveals
something about S~ corporate attitudes. I'm just not sure yet whether it
reveals what they think about their product, or their current user base.
And I would hate to be near him on an airplane when he finds the
person next to him paid $100 less for the same flight. :-)
The situation will not arise since this practice by commercial airlines
in the US is one of the reasons that Noel has not been on a commercial
airline flight since about 15 January, 1999, and does not anticipate
that he will ever consider air carriers for his travel needs.
ns
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