RE: the high cost of MapInfo recently bemoaned by Mr. Hoskins Two weeks ago I had an almost identical discussion with a geological cross-section vendor at an AAPG meeting. The code was a well done geological cross-sectioning code, but it sold for $4,000 and was not set up to handle real world coordinates. Their market was the major oil companies (the only ones who could afford it). They were the cheap boys on the scene (the competition code began at $50,000). I suggested that they drop the price to 500-1000 dollars and market it to engineering, geologic, and haz waste firms. There were 1000's of potential customers ready to buy a lower priced code. He pointed out that it was really not worth it to his firm. His logic went like this. Assume that he had 500 customers paying $3,000 each. This produced 1.5 million gross. He would have to have 3750 customers paying $400 each to produce the same gross amount. He would also have the headache of dealing with 7 times the number of customers (both in dealing with people and having the infrastructure to handle that many people). He then asked how many potential total customers were there world wide (for his code). I guessed at 15,000. At $500 per code, this is 7.5 million gross. He would get the same gross with 2500 customers at $3,000. I then asked him how many customers he thought there were at the higher price. He estimated 1500 to 2000. (They also felt that the high priced compitition might buy them out) I am not sure that it is worth it for a specialized firm to try and go after a large customer base. They just need enough firms to pay the higher price. Look who Mapinfo is geared for - business (not government or schools). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
