In article <1194998791.427135.132370@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Math1723 <anonym1723@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Well, we appear to be on the precipice of another REALbasic price
> increase, this time in the Standard Edition. Since time immemorial,
> the Standard Edition has been priced at a reasonable $99.95 (recently
> rounded to $100.00), with upgrades at half that price. Even with the
> switch to the subscription model, this had always remained unchanged.
>
> When additional revenue was needed, REAL Software typically reduced
> costs (charging extra for manuals, etc.) rather than increase the
> Standard price. The Pro price, however, did steadily increase from
> $299.95 to where it is now at a whopping $500.
Is that "whopping"? Visual Studio 2005 Pro, $549. If you also want the
Office tools, that's another $549. You might also want access to the
Microsoft Library; that'll be another $99. Want the "Team Suite with
MSDN Premium Subscription"? $3,499. (For Windows only, of course.)
<http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/preferences/lang/aa700832.aspx>
Freescale Codewarrior is now pretty much only for embedded development,
but still, depending on what processors you need and how much sup****t
you want, it ranges from $995 to $6,324.
<http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=CWS-H08-S
TDED-CX&parentCode=null&nodeId=01272694010559&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab>
Maybe we should develop our cross-platform apps in QT instead? Unless
you want to release them as open-source, you'll need a commercial
license. For three desktop platforms (same as RB), this costs $6,600.
(If you only want to sup****t console apps, you can get by for only
$3,560. Or if you only need one desktop platform, it's $3,300.)
<http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing>
Seriously, $500 for a professional development environment is a bargain.
> But all that time, Standard never budged.
>
> Well, all good things must come to an end, I suppose. Standard is
> doubling in price to $200, although still available for $100 at the
> moment (likely to switch to the new price when RB2008R1 is released).
> Although the web site doesn't indicate this, I expect that the upgrade
> price to double as well, from $50 to $100.
>
> I guess I can't begrudge them too much. It's been a great deal going
> along this far. As the market saturates, fewer new licenses will be
> sold and more renewals will take their place. Since RS's operating
> costs will not be going down any time soon, the base of renewals will
> have to shoulder more of the burden now.
The market is nowhere close to saturating. But more revenue for RS is
good for all of us: it enables more engineers, more testers, maybe even
a decent tech writer, and other goodness. Most of the complaining we
all hear about RB ultimately comes from inadequate development funds.
And, as you say, it's been a great deal, and at $200 still is. The
closest analog among the competition would be Visual Studio Standard,
which is $199. But that's Windows-only; a better analog would be QT's
single-desktop license at $3,300.
I do hope they still have aggressive academic discounts, because I know
that for students (and to a lesser extent, teachers), $200 is a very big
burden. But for the rest of us, I think it's quite reasonable.
Best,
- Joe
--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually
work.
Learn more and discuss via:
<http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/>
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