Andy's comments and positioning...

[Jerry Daniels]

As I recall there are four P's in marketing: Product, Price, Place and 
Promotion. These four work together dynamically and not in isolation. 
Any decision about price has to consider the company's ability to 
promote the product and place (distribute) it in a consumer's hot 
little hands.

How these four P's work together determines how the product is 
positioned in the consumer's mind. Good positioning will make someone 
think the product is a good deal for $xxx and that they have to have it 
NOW. Positioning is, of course, more than a statement.

I don't see how a company can thrive supporting ALL these platforms and 
sell a product for $99 unless they are marketing the hell out of it and 
are well funded to do so.

Maybe there are sales figures and cash flow to back the $99 approach. I 
don't know. Do people convert to more expensive licenses after getting 
a taste for 99 dollars? Do ten times the number of people buy the $99 
version than would have purchased the $995 version? Is $495 best? 
People are buying miniPods for $249 and they have to wait for one! And 
that's an entertainment item--a toy. This is a professional tool--MUCH 
more than HyperCard.

Those are some of my thoughts, anyway.

-Jerry

On Feb 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Chipp Walters wrote:

> I like to think of RR as a *real development tool*, not as a HyperCard 
> clone
> or newbie play toy. Unfortunately, I believe Andy thinks of it more as 
> a
> HyperCard clone...primarily because of positioning.
>
> What if RR is positioned as the ubiquitous RAD programming environment 
> for
> cross platform development -- surpassing in both speed and performance 
> other
> tools such as JAVA, QT, VB, etc.? I think this is a valid positioning
> statement. Now to turn around and say "and it's only $99" and your Mom 
> can
> use it, certainly doesn't seem to back this up.
>
> Which brings us to the real problem...positioning. RR can be 
> positioned as a
> 'HyperCard clone' for the inventive user OR as a full-featured 
> development
> tool for professionals can use to build commercial and enterprise
> applications.
>
> There have been a few comments lately about Rev pricing...
>
> I think Rev's pricing is right on the money. Users can download a free
> version which they can try out for 30 days. Of course the HyperCard 
> clone
> crowd wants a version for $99 bucks. That is where their expectation 
> is set
> (just like Andy). After all, Apple used to 'give it away.'
>
> But, developers whose business depends on RR, are used to paying much 
> more
> for professional tools. Just look at other cross-platform development
> suites. By comparison, RR is a steal.
>
> One of the biggest challenges for Xtalk companies is their ability to 
> stay
> funded and alive. I believe in RR as a professional development tool. 
> And,
> as a professional developer, I can make money with it, even if it does 
> cost
> hundreds of dollars.
>
> Many of you already know this, but it's an interesting story 
> nonetheless.
> Last year, I wrote ButtonGadget in about 3 weeks of spare time. I sold 
> in on
> my website using PayPal for $20 a copy. In less than one year, I 
> bought two
> plasma screen TV's with the profits. The program was written all in 
> native
> Transcript. No DLL's nor externals. As a VB programmer, I can tell you 
> there
> is NO WAY I could have developed such a product so rapidly, in fact, I
> wouldn't have developed ButtonGadget in either VB or C++ as IMO the 
> return
> of time vs revenue would've been too risky.
>
> The reason I mention this is to demonstrate the incredible revenue 
> potential
> for products developed with this product. I also could mention we're
> currently using RR to build a very large Enterprise Application for 
> Homeland
> Security. It scales as well - from ButtonGadget to Enterprise Content
> Management Systems connected to huge databases. $99 bucks just doesn't 
> cash
> in on it's value to me. And I really want to see Revolution do well, 
> so I
> continue to be able to write these cool programs!
>
> -Chipp
>
>
>
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