From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4509214aa8b1885b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin D. Condic" Subject: Re: GNAT Support Costs Date: 2000/01/23 Message-ID: <388B803A.4DC86714@quadruscorp.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 576666056 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <388A508F.B5BB19D@acenet.com.au> Organization: Quadrus Corporation X-Sender: "Marin D. Condic" (Unverified) X-Server-Date: 23 Jan 2000 22:27:22 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-01-23T22:27:22+00:00 List-Id: Geoff Bull wrote: > > Robert Kirkbride wrote: > > > > Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater for > > small projects? > > Um, the public version of Gnat? > Then you can sign up for support when it suddenly > looks like a cheap option. > At the risk of trying to tell someone else how to run their business....:-) It would seem to me that it might pay to "segment the market" here. There are tiers of customers with varying levels of support needed. Some might simply need questions answered and advice on how to use the product to achieve their objectives. (I've fallen into this category many times!) Others might need that sort of technical support plus new releases as soon as they are available. Still others might need all of that plus bug fixes & enhancements on demand. Also, some projects are very small (one person) while others could be quite large and long lived. Structuring support contracts to try to capture each of those segments makes business sense. I know I have been in a position when using GNAT where I've simply needed someone knowledgable about the compiler to talk me through methods of obtaining the results I want. However, most of these were one-man operations, some just IR&D efforts to prove out concepts. While I wanted support, ACT seemed to be at a price point which I might have been able to justify to the bean counters for a full-up engine control project, but could never squeeze out the signatures needed for the little hacker jobs I was doing. Helpful Household Hint for Ada developers: I could easily get my boss to sign almost any purchase order under $1500 because that was the level he was authorized to spend without any review up the pipe. Over that amount and I'd get told "no" simply because he didn't want to go through the hassle for stuff that I just wanted and had no "project won't work unless..." justification lined up. (The project had better have been pretty important too. Couldn't just be a sideline job.) So it would pay to find out what that price point is for many larger potential customers and structure products & services to be under that point. Its easier to sell individual bite sized pieces than it is to sell the whole lump. MDC -- ============================================================= Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - 1.800.555.3393 1015-116 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233 http://www.quadruscorp.com/ m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin." -- Allan Meltzer, Economist =============================================================