Re: Ada vendors and the art of selling used cars

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Well, I'm not sure I said "There are no valid reasons not to publish the
prices..." :-) The reason for not publishing the prices is to avoid turning
the product into a commodity and start a bidding war. That's a valid reason
from the vendor's point of view. From the consumer's point of view, we'd
*like* for it to become a commodity so we get the lowest possible price.

Note that it may help Ada to become a commodity - but it doesn't necessarily
help any particular vendor. They have to make their choices based on what
they think will help their business the most. I don't begrudge them that -
but so long as we are honest about why price quotes aren't given over the
Internet I'm comfortable with it. Failing to put $$$ numbers on a web site
means that basically you avoid the "commodity" pricing wars and you will
likely only get serious inquiries from more significant concerns. (Home
hobyists are more likely to go "Intercourse this! I'll go download GNAT
rather than have to deal with a salesman..." There is a lot of resistance to
filling out marketing surveys &/or calling for more info - hence about the
only people who will call are the ones who are real serious about buying.)
So you gain something there as a business. But you give something else up at
the same time. The minute you've got your compiler out there advertised for
$29.95 - just call with your credit card and we'll ship it to you next-day
air... then you are doing something to broaden the market. You're collecting
up all those customers who have a much lower reservation price and working
on generating that "critical mass". You gain there as a business, but you
again lose other things in the process. Now you've got to be a different
kind of a business - 24 hour hot lines, different kinds of support, etc.
You've eroded profit margins and made the industry much more competitive.
But does anybody remember when Borland started selling Pascal compilers for
$29.95 and totally shattered the traditional unafordable compiler pricing
model? What happened? Consumers started programming instead of it just being
a thing for big businesses and universities.

What's best for the business? I can venture speculation, but let's figure
that ACT, Aonix, Averstar, RR Software, Green Hills, et alia, are all
thinking about that a whole lot more than I am. What's best for Ada? I think
we agree that its having a good quality kit at an inexpensive price. Cheap
is good and not too steep - but most of all cheap is cheap! :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Jerry Petrey @west.raytheon.com>" <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:3B8282CF.98B0FD28@west.raytheon.com...
>
> I agree Marin.  There are no valid reasons not to publish the prices of
> Ada compilers and tools.  As you have said before, we need a vendor to
> make a complete development environment available at a reasonable price
> to the individual user.  Before Ada can get more accepted in the
> industry,
> more S/W engineers must start using it and one way to get more using it
> is
> to make it available to them in a very usable form and as cheap as
> possible.
> In the long run, you'll increase your sales to the big companies this
> way.
> It is people like us who have a chance to influence our companies to
> make
> the right choices of tools and languages.  I am happy to try out a
> number of
> Ada compilers at home but I sure don't expect to pay $500 to $1000 for
> each of
> them.
>
> My experience with Aonix has not been a good one.  A few years ago, I
> went that
> route of contacting their sales rep for a compiler to evaluate (the
> early version
> of Object Ada).  They made a reasonable price on a consultant's version
> with a
> support contract.  But after a year had passed and I had not received
> any notice
> of renewal of the support, I tried contacting the lady who handled
> this.  Over a
> period of a few weeks, I called dozens of times, left messages when I
> could get
> through at all and never received a return call.  I finally gave up for
> a while
> until I tracked down a way to call her without going through the phone
> mail
> system.  She quickly dismissed all the trouble I had reaching her and
> said since
> my support contract had expired I would have to pay for two years to
> catch up (even
> though there had not been any updates in that last year).
>
> In my previous job at Lockheed using an Aonix Ada compiler we paid an
> outrageous
> price for support which was still not good.
>
> This is not the way for a vendor to build a big customer base in a
> market that
> is (sadly) rather small already.
>
> We need Ada vendors who really care about the long term growth of Ada
> and are
> willing to make commitments to help that growth.  Ada is a language that
> can
> make difference in the quality (and safety) of the software being
> produced
> today but compiler vendors must start taking a long term view and do
> 'the
> right thing' to support this growth.
>
> Jerry
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> -- Jerry Petrey
> -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control
> -- Raytheon Missile Systems          - Member Team Ada & Team Forth
> -- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to
> reply
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