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From: "DuckE" <nospam_steved@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: GNAT Support Costs
Date: 2000/01/23
Message-ID: <388be7b7.0@news.pacifier.com>#1/1
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 <388A508F.B5BB19D@acenet.com.au> <388B803A.4DC86714@quadruscorp.com>
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Reply-To: "DuckE" <nospam_steved@pacifier.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 2000-01-23T00:00:00+00:00
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> 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 believe the relatively high cost of support for GNAT for small projects is
an indication that ACT is not "hungry" for paying customers.  I view this as
a sign that Ada Core is a healthy company.

As ACT representatives will tell you, their cost is not high when compared
to similar products used in industry.

SteveD