Earing money with Python software (was: More on Protecting Source Code)

[David LeBlanc]

In my experience, the reason big corps don't buy low-priced software is that
it's... low priced!
The big boys expect to pay big prices. They also generally expect big priced
levels of support too. I think some of this stems from them knowing what it
would cost them to build rather then buy and they don't consider the lower
overhead of little companies that allows them to offer lower prices. Thus,
they question the quality of "cheap".

Another reason why big companies/the government don't buy from little
companies in general is based on concerns that 'little company' won't be
around in the future. This is especially true if 'big company' preceives
some degree of mission criticality in the software they're considering.

What dreams are made of: GE buying a 55,000 seat license at $20/seat! :)

David LeBlanc
Seattle, WA USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: python-list-admin at python.org
> [mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of brueckd at tbye.com
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 9:32
> To: python-list at python.org
> Subject: Re: Earing money with Python software (was: More on Protecting
> Source Code)
>
>
> On Wed, 18 Sep 2002, Michael Ströder wrote:
>
> > brueckd at tbye.com wrote:
> > > free-for-personal-use-but-companies-must-pay approach when possible.
> >
> > The problem with getting some bucks from a company is the
> amount of time
> > spent during decision taking and ordering process. For you to earn 300
> > bucks for your software the company spends another 500+ bucks for
> > working time until the money gets out.
>
> Well, it really varies by company of course. Most places I've worked only
> require that much bureaucracy for larger purchases. For small
> stuff (under
> a few hundred dollars) it usually amounts to me informing a superior that
> tool X is needed and worthwhile. After that I just buy it myself and turn
> in a simple expense report.
>
> > IMHO that's why it's so hard to
> > sell small packages of rather cheap software to big companies.
>
> That's why you don't sell it for $300. Seriously: if it's a small and
> cheap package then $300 (I'm assuming US$300) is often too high for small
> businesses and many individuals anyway, and for large companies it might
> be expensive enough to trigger more purchasing overhead (at my current job
> that price could go either way). So... you sell your product with a single
> seat license for, say, $100 and then offer a site license for e.g. $500
> as well as a renewable support package for $1000 a year or whatever. You
> also give 'em discounts when you release a new version next year.
>
> -Dave
>
>
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