Re: George Farr declaresfeaturespecificpricingonhorizonfor WDSC

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Aaron,

You said :" those tools need to be paid for whether it be through an 
annual purchase of SW Maint, compiler purchase, or off the shelf feature 
pricing."

I am not sure I completely agree.  Paid for, yes.  But the license fee 
is is minuscule compared to what IBM really wants here: Hardware and 
services sales.  This is what baffles me a bit with hardware and 
services companies.  It's the old razor blades and razors analogy.  If 
you give away the razor, you make your money on the blades.  I think if 
IBM is struggling with System i adoption, then having MORE applications 
that drive hardware sales would be a logical way to encourage sales. A 
GREAT way to encourage development of "must have" applications is to 
give away the tools to develop them with. 

Microsoft did just this early on in its developer program.  The tools 
were practically free and guess what, there are a ton of .NET developers 
because of that.  There might be better tools at higher prices now, but 
the initial developer program was "seeded' by free tools and they are 
still easy ways to get a free copy of the tools now.  A copy of the 
standard version of Visual Studio can be had by sitting in a webcast. A 
Full copy of Visual Studio Professional is only $799.00 retail. VS 2005 
application development leads to more Microsoft-centric applications and 
therefore more OS and Office sales.  Beautiful!

If IBM would think outside the box a bit here they could solve not only 
this new thorny issue of WDSc pricing but solve the larger issue of why 
System i sales are not meeting expectations.

Pete Helgren


albartell wrote:
> I can see I have hit a sensitive spot with you John, but in my defense I
> have only been a contractor for a couple years now.  I have lived where you
> are living.  You must also understand that every shop that I go into may not
> have the money for the things that I am in support of, which will inevitably
> mean I will not be able to use the WDSC tooling when working for them.
>
> Am I drinking WDSC Kool-Aid?  Maybe.  I have drank Java Kool-Aid before and
> thrown it up years later.  I think the reality of the situation is this: No
> money to pay developers, no second-to-none tooling.  Am I fine with most of
> what I have today in WDSC, yes.  But they (WDSC dev team) might be able to
> raise their development to the next level (concerning feature sets) and if
> that costs me more $$ to get it in 1yr vs. 5yrs then many would say it is
> worth it.
>
> My previous employer is making a grand switch to .NET.  Wanna know why?
> Tooling/Software.  Plain and simple.  Microsoft has some pretty nice
> integration amongst all of their products and I can see why the decision was
> made.  What if IBM would have had the tooling available to them two years
> ago?  They wouldn't have had to introduce an entirely new development
> environment into the scenario which costs a lot of $$$.
>
> I guess in the end we both are on the same page, just getting there through
> different means.  We both agree that somehow those tools need to be paid for
> whether it be through an annual purchase of SW Maint, compiler purchase, or
> off the shelf feature pricing.  Note that I am not saying that you agree
> with me on the pay-by-feature deal:-) It will be interesting to see where it
> goes.
>
> Aaron Bartell
>   
>