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From: RonG on 30 Mar 2010 10:09
On Mar 29, 6:13 pm, PW <emailaddyin...(a)ifIremember.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:11:02 -0700 (PDT), RonG <rgaf...(a)sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Hi Paul,
>
> >Just FYI, we did have to make some changes to our Acc97 app when our
> >users started using Vista, but we now have users running Win7 with our
> >Acc97 runtime app and they're not reporting any problems.
>
> >If you make use of our good friend Google, you'll find articles and
> >threads about running older versions of Office apps along with newer
> >versions of Office and Windows.  The challenges are all pretty well
> >documented now.  Unfortunately, many of the solutions don't help much
> >in the runtime world.  There may be some creative solutions that I
> >haven't found yet, of course.
>
Hi Paul,

Yeah, I feel your pain. Our current business model (developed by the
original owner some time ago, and appropriate for the times) has only
a one-time purchase price with no support fee, and all upgrades to
that version included. That's unsustainable as an ongoing business
model, but after so many years, it's a challenge to migrate to
something that's affordable for our users, but allows us to, well,
stay in business. I really want to keep the software affordable for
my customers, who are mostly one-person operations. There are a
number of options, and I'm still kind of wrestling with which one will
work best. I can come out with a new version every year, obsoleting
some of the older ones, and hopefully get people to buy-in that way,
although our practice has been to discount the new versions for
existing customers. I can create a web version of the application,
and get a more continuous revenue stream since many web-apps operate
on a monthly fee. I could just make the software pricing more of a
"subscription" where you pay an annual fee for support and all the
updates during that year. Of course, there are the more obvious
things like increased marketing, expanding the potential customer
pool, etc, which are all projects I have underway.

Actually, this is a pretty interesting topic in and of itself, I think
I may start a separate thread about this. Happy to talk about it more
off the list if you'd like, too.

Ron


> >Ron
>
> Thanks Ron.  How about if they just pay the small upgrade fee and
> their small annual support subscription first! Some of these lodges
> that buy our software make lots of money yet $150 a year or whatever
> for phone and email support, upgrades, new features is too much?  Our
> competition (not that there is anyone else that has a product that
> exactly does what ours does) charges what I think are outrageous
> support fees.  Sorry for the rant :-)
>
> It is only these guys that are having trouble with our A97 version
> with Vista or 7 (that we know about).
>
> -paulw

From: PW on 30 Mar 2010 15:23
>>
>Hi Paul,
>
>Yeah, I feel your pain. Our current business model (developed by the
>original owner some time ago, and appropriate for the times) has only
>a one-time purchase price with no support fee, and all upgrades to
>that version included. That's unsustainable as an ongoing business
>model, but after so many years, it's a challenge to migrate to
>something that's affordable for our users, but allows us to, well,
>stay in business. I really want to keep the software affordable for
>my customers, who are mostly one-person operations. There are a
>number of options, and I'm still kind of wrestling with which one will
>work best. I can come out with a new version every year, obsoleting
>some of the older ones, and hopefully get people to buy-in that way,
>although our practice has been to discount the new versions for
>existing customers. I can create a web version of the application,
>and get a more continuous revenue stream since many web-apps operate
>on a monthly fee. I could just make the software pricing more of a
>"subscription" where you pay an annual fee for support and all the
>updates during that year. Of course, there are the more obvious
>things like increased marketing, expanding the potential customer
>pool, etc, which are all projects I have underway.
>
>Actually, this is a pretty interesting topic in and of itself, I think
>I may start a separate thread about this. Happy to talk about it more
>off the list if you'd like, too.
>
>Ron
>

Yeah, pricing models are all over the place. We never charged for
support, just a small fee for upgrades. Our software is all custom. I
don't think there are two versions exactly the same (fun, eh?!).

We had quite a few clients ask us why we did not charge for support.
We (my wife and I) are old fashioned and always believed support
should be free for those who bought the product and it was immoral to
charge for support. But we ended up deciding we were the only ones
that believed that.

Our market may seem large but it is pretty small when you take into
account the number of lodges that are professional or large enough to
actually want to use software. Turnover is huge. We failed twice in
getting a .NET web version, costing us quite a bit of money after the
two different developers bailing on us and leaving us with nothing.
That was a few years ago. We don't really think it would be worth the
cost as the market may not be that big. Sure, some clients want to be
able to access reports, view income and reservations from wherever
they are but not enough. Remote Desktop and GoToMyPC seem to be
working for them.

I know SaaS is all the rage now.

Some "competitors" give their software away but charge from $40 - $80+
a month depending on how large the client is. I don't know about
that. Doesn't seem right.

Another sells the application and charges various fees a month
depending if the client wants phone support, email support, updates,
etc... up to $500/mo!

Others charge $35 for each phone call!

We think we are being very reasonable. 10% of the purchase price per
year. New modules are discounted for those who keep up their support
agreement. Unlimited phone calls and emails. And no fees for
upgrades.

We seem to have ticked off some clients and have lost a few but I know
it is not nice to say, but maybe we have weeded out the weak ones. We
know how much money some of them make as we have to get their data
sometimes.


Oh well.

Thanks again,

-paul
From: PW on 30 Mar 2010 15:39
I should also mention that the annual support money has been keeping
us in business recently (barely) since our main income stream has
essentially ended (but am hoping for another project). We can't pay
all our bills with our Access application, unfortunately. And we use
this money to buy 3rd party tools that make our product better.

-pw
From: PW on 30 Mar 2010 16:08
>Actually, this is a pretty interesting topic in and of itself, I think
>I may start a separate thread about this. Happy to talk about it more
>off the list if you'd like, too.
>
>Ron

It would be interesting to see if you get any replies. I don't know
how many people here actually have applications that they sell and
support.

-pw
From: RonG on 31 Mar 2010 10:25
I've received one response so far, and that was from an inhouse
developer, not an ISV. Still interesting insights, but I'd like to
hear from some independent developers as well. There could be another
group that's more appropriate for that kind of discussion. I'll take
a look around to see what there might be.

Right now, my company is just me. My wife could easily do this kind
of work as well (we both worked in IT for a long time), but she's
currently working as a teacher's aide for the insurance benefits,
since the company can't afford it yet. I've tried to keep the
software reasonably priced because I know that my customers (artists)
don't have a lot of money, either. On the other hand, I have to make
a living. I'm starting up a fairly large marketing campaign to try
and grow my customer base, and that, like everything else, takes up a
good deal of time.

I'm surprised that you had such a bad experience getting your new
software developed. I do my own development work now, but in a
previous life, I dealt with contract developers quite a bit, and
didn't really run into problems like that. Of course, I worked for a
larger company with lawyers and such, so we weren't so vulnerable.
The technology for putting an application on the web isn't *that*
difficult once you choose a technology toolset to work with. Well, I
guess it's not that difficult if you've done it :-). Have you
considered building it yourself? The business and technology model for
a web-based product is different, of course. I wasn't real clear on
what your target customer is, but if it's the lodging industry, you'd
have to be concerned about access to the web on a regular basis. I
suspect most would have that, but more remote sites might need a
desktop product instead.

Anyway, I'd love to continue the discussion, but we're getting *way*
off the topic here. If you'd like to chat further and share some
ideas, drop me an email, ok? ron dot gafron at workingartist dot com
(sorry, just trying to avoid the bots)
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