Can't resist tossing my quarter into the pond. Let me preface this by
saying that I love MetaCard and will use it as long as it exists. This is
meant to be brainstorming out loud and constructive criticism. If I didn't
love MetaCard, I wouldn't bother typing all of this!
Publicity
Part of the MetaCard problem is that the general public has never heard of
it. I have to spend half my time explaining to clients that MetaCard is
more powerful for creating applications than FileMaker Pro. Getting
MetaCard to the point that the general public has at least heard of it would
help it greatly.
Competition
Everyone talks about Director being MetaCard's competition, but I don't
really see it that way. Director is great at doing animation-type
programs... I don't see MetaCard touching it for doing animations, no matter
what features are added. But Director sucks at pretty much everything else.
I think MetaCard's competition is Virtual Basic (PC) and Real Basic (Mac.)
Price
To a serious software developer, MetaCard's price is reasonable. To someone
comparing it to Real Basic, it's not realistic. Real Basic comes in two
flavors... Standard ($149.95) and Pro ($349.95.) The Standard package is
way way way less than MetaCard. To a hobbyist, the cost difference is just
too much. If MetaCard were available at these two price points, I think
it'd do a heck of a lot better.
Look at Apple Computer. The Macintosh, until recently, was a very expensive
computer, and you had to buy a Mac to get the Mac OS. Apple refused to
license the Mac OS because it was making so much money selling it's
overpriced Macs. The result was ending up with 5% market share and almost
going out of business, despite having the best overall consumer product
around. In other words, they sacrificed market share for high profit margin
and it almost killed them.
(It shows you how much price matters to most people. Imagine someone
choosing a PC running Windows 3.1 over a Macintosh just to save some bucks.
Windows 3.1 was the biggest piece of crap I have EVER seen.)
MetaCard is superior to Real Basic or Visual Basic. Easier to use, easier
to learn, more powerful in many ways, faster to develop, etc, etc. If
priced in the same range, it could give both Basics a run for their money.
Except for...
Ease of Use/Interface
MetaCard's interface is better than it used to be, but lacks polish.
Example: Open a stack, then open your navigator and move around to
different cards. Close your stack and open another one. The navigator
isn't smart enough to realize that the previous stack was closed, and it
ought to be looking at the top stack. This is not the end of the world, but
there's a lot of little things like this about MetaCard. I know that Cross
Worlds is designing a new interface, and that's a good idea. 'Course I've
invested so much time into this one I'd never change, but for newcomers,
it's a good thing.
Summary
Can you tell I worked for the Small Business Administration doing business
consulting in college? Ha! Who needs fancy consultants. You just need a
MetaCard Mailing List. MetaCard would have a shot at the "big time" if it
would:
1. Get a more polished interface (that's being done now.)
2. Stop pricing itself like the Macintosh used to.
3. Get some more cash and market, market, market. I need to be able to buy
MetaCard in a box from MacMall and PCMall!
When an interviewer asked Guy Kawasaki why Apple didn't license it's OS, he
said that it would have been VERY difficult to do so because Apple was
making so much money (because the profit margins were so high.) It would've
been difficult to convince stockholders that Apple should license the OS and
then potentially lose money for a while, in an effort to create market
share. Yet history shows they probably should have.
If the 3 steps above were taken, the Macintosh community would totally buy
into MetaCard. Not so sure about the PC market.
BTW - I'm sure MetaCard Corp. realizes all of this stuff. They've probably
decided that making a real lot of money on each copy sold and keeping costs
low is preferable to reducing the price and risking losing money if sales
aren't high enough. Hey, this is what venture capitalists are for! Just
play up MetaCard's socket support and position MetaCard as an Internet
Application creator and it'll attract attention. :)
Richard MacLemale
www.coolclassroom.com
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