RE: Outrageous prices real?

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>allows users to post documents to
>>a Web site, runs $10,000.
>
>Are all packages this expensive?
>Who buys this? And why?

Our software is much more expensive than this (we write ERP software for
telephone companies).

People buy packages because they realise that the time it would take to 'do
it yourself' is worth more than the purchase price.  For instance, how long
would it take you (or me for that matter!) to write the software that emails
spooled files?  A week?  Two?  If you count your time at some average number
like a hundred dollars, 80 hours of work is 8000 dollars.  Then factor in
the 80 hours you lost from your 'real' work.  And how about supporting it?
I know that I have never done an ad hoc tool that was ever finished -
somebody always wants some new thing added to it.

There's no question that for a small company (say me, striking out as a one
man shop) would find 10000 dollars expensive, maybe prohibitively so.
That's why there are still people like me (and maybe you) who are told to
'do it ourselves' and save the extra expense.  That is to say, the expense
above and beyond my salary, which the company is already paying.

I hope that helps some.
  --buck