[softwarelist] Re: Imposition signatures?
- From: Martin Wuerthner <public@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:26:50 +0200
In message <466044FD.1020603@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Phillip Marsden <phillip.marsden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> David Pilling wrote:
>> In message <4eebce211cgav@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Gavin Crawford
>> <gav@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>>> not much on RISC OS though! I guess the time has now passed for the
>>> demand for such specialist software for the RISC OS market.
>>
>>> cheap option I can recommend Quite Imposing and Quite Imposing Plus from
>>> www.quite.com - it works as a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat and offers a
>>
>> Points up some dilemmas for me - in other words one hundredth of the
>> time spent on OP writing a plug in for something else might have
>> produced a more viable product.
>
> With reference to the other two replies that you have already received.
> These are yet more examples of RISC OS peopel living in Cloud Cuckoo
> Land. You made it quite clear in your comment above that much less time
> spent on a Windows add-on product would have brought in much more than
> the time spent on a RISC OS product.
As I read David's comment above it was about writing the *Windows*
version of OvationPro, not about the RISC OS version.
> Do these people listen? No, they just go into the tired old routine of
> offering what is (to be frank) a ridiculous amount of money. £200?
> Don't make me laugh! Come into the real world.
£200 from a single user is an amazing amount of money. Of course, for
a non-mainstream feature it does not mean anything, but for a feature
that is of interest to the majority of the user base it is a lot.
> A contract probrammer can earn that much in a DAY quite easily (and
> could do so 10 years ago to my certain knowledge).
As it happens, £200 a day was precisely the target amount I based my
budgeting on when I started writing ArtWorks modules more than 10
years ago. Not so difficult to achieve even with RISC OS software: As
a rule of thumb, for each week of programming work spent you need 100
users who pay £10, or 50 who pay £20. Of course, all the sales,
distribution, accounting and support effort still goes on top of that.
Going by your £200/d figure and assuming a user base of 300 users who
are prepared to upgrade for £30 inc VAT each, about two months'
full-time programming work can be spent to produce the upgrade, which
allows substantial development.
So, the situation is not quite as bad as you described it. Of course,
it all depends on the size of each application's user base. That of
most RISC OS applications has fallen below a criticial minimum a long
time ago, which precludes any cost-effective development. However, I
am certain that OvationPro is still one of the few applications for
which it would work.
Martin
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Martin Wuerthner MW Software martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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