Hi,
Could you elaborate a little?
I am not sure if I have understood correctly. As a user, with the new selling method,
1) I could buy the engine alone (not very useful by itself);
2) " " new scenario packs;
3) " " updates to the old scenario packs I already own (at a portion of the price).
Is this right?
Thanks
Luigi
Luigi,
What we are considering at the moment is providing the engine as a standalone product with three or four scenarios. These would basically be the tutorial plus a couple of samplers. In other words it would be enough to give you a taste. The modules (scenario packs) would have 12 to 15 scenarios each and cover some particular operation. These would be separate products but require the engine to run.
We are currently having a discussion about whether to release the engine for free. You would still have to register and get a serial number. You just wouldn't have to pay for it. We would make our money to cover development costs on the modules. If we update the engine to fix a few bugs or do something minor then there would be no charge to update the modules. However, if we provide a significant new feature then we would charge an upgrade fee for the modules. How much would depend on the effort that went into the feature development.
The advantage of this approach is that it would remove the huge development hurdle between the release of new modules - so more data. It also provides a lot of flexibility for releasing more updates more quickly. We would aim for one or two significant updates per year, with as many minor ones as needed. Another advantage is that by giving away the engine it effectively acts as our demo. So we don't need to maintain two separate products and it will always be up to date.
We are still discussing the pricing of the modules. As a rough rule of thumb, I am looking to charge $2 per scenario - smaller ones could be charged at $1 and larger ones at $3. The really huge ones in the KOAD pack would probably be charged at $4 each. This would see your average module work out at $25 to $30. Remember that this has to cover the cost of development for both the data and the engine. Upgrade pricing, as I mentioned, would depend on the amount of effort invested into the new features. It may vary from a few dollars per module to a more significant amount for something really big. We would not envisage this ever going above 50% of the normal price of a module. For those people who own multiple modules we could look at a bundle upgrade deal.
Please be aware that this is not official. We are still deliberating.