Software Pricing and Online Community as Marketing Tool
Niche Costs
It is substantially interpreted that niche goods have a lower need but a more high-pitched price. Developers who distribute into a niche are capable to charge a premium as the developer sees the particular demands in the niche. The cost of niche or vertical software package is as well generally higher as the marketplace segment is smaller and there's generally less competition.
Price Reductions
It is general practice to propose clients price breaks for scaled purchases. Conceive setting up a skidding scale so that the more package the client buys the larger the discount they get.
Keep Pricing Updated
A lot of developers leave money on the table when pricing software package upgrades. This is a general error. Existing clients are an fantabulous source of income. Charge a nominative fee for version updates.
Internet Site Licenses
Site certifies are an elaboration of amount discounts and can bring in important revenue from big corporations.
OEM Pricing
OEM corresponds to Original Equipment Manufacturer and it is while a corporation sells goods (including software package) under its own label, that include applied science accredited from additional marketer. Volume is decisive for OEM deals to be fruitful. In about all OEM dialogues gross margins are small but amounts are large.
Educational or Non-Profit-Making Reductions
It is not unusual to give educational reductions, or discounts to non-profits. There's no "distinctive" educational reductions. Reductions can alter from ten per cent to 90 per cent off of the list cost. If this is a commercializing section you trade to, keep a discount measure in mind when fixing the price, as a lot of non-profits and educational establishments are accustom to having reductions, and may be hold over by not getting one.
Reseller Reductions
Resellers can broaden your gross revenue force. When fixating a price it is crucial to conceive the function resellers will take in the goods success. If the application program is priced too cheap, resellers won't have an incentive to advocate the software - nor will their be much gross profit for you to apportion with these resellers.
Small software corporations that establish a community about their products can profit from buzz marketing. Community partakers will frequently evangelize software, help with support enquiries, and lend believability to your application. In addition, the community partakers will frequently detail real life situations that led in the apply of the software in an effective manner. These forms of endorsements are invaluable.
Local software package "user groups" were once a foundation in the success of a software package application. With the infiltration of the World Wide Web into daily lives, geographical limits are no longer an obstruction. The contemporary user teams have turned virtual internet communities, comprising partakers from a wide range of cultures and positions. In order to create an effective community, software package developers can learn from the user teams that were once an expanding BBS sub-culture.
Apply such tips to create your Software Society...
1. Notification Of Communicating
Developers must talk effectively with their software society. Offer a broad variety of communication instruments, so that community partakers can pick out their wanted communication way. Developers should propose electronic mail updates, RSS feeds, user BBS, and so forth. Alerts should be set up to advise concerned parties on fresh releases, good sweetenings, or other data that might be of concern. Pre-release editions can as well be proposed to the most dynamic community partakers, which will make them experience special and apprized.
2. Reputation Indicant
Apply a tool that will appraise the community player's reputation. Reputation indicants can be ascertained by the deal of posts, length of engagement, or the quality of graded posts. There are a deal of forum accessories that can be applied to mechanically appraise a members reputation. Speak to your forum provider to assure what accessories are available that could assist with supervising the reputation of forum partakers.
3. Good Emotions
Produce good will by keeping going the community, whether financially by patronizing meet-ups, or by allowing a forum for them to put across in a meaningful approach.
4. Rewards For Engagement
Whether you apply a points structure, a post indicant, or a listing of top posters, study rewarding community engagement by providing beta imitates or gratis upgrades to lead posters. Disregarding whether the points have any real value, partakers will want to see their evaluation growth over time.
5. Expertness
Make community partakers to effectively "social bookmark" occupying items that associate with your software good line. The communal look of social bookmarking is most efficient when a scaled deal of the social community partakers indorse, bookmark, or "ballot" for a particular item.
6. Boost Engagement
Enlarge the number of community members to intensively take part. Conceive giving them duties. For instance, you might prefer to give moderation reach to a participant who is exceedingly intensive and knowledgeable about the good. Or, if they're keenly acquainted with 3rd-party accessory applications, encourage them to discourse this data and possibly build tutorials. Occasionally partakers will be loath to volunteer such matters, as they fear exceeding their role in the society; but encouragement can be salutary to all sides.
7. Determine Commonality
The online society must have a general theme that all partakers in the society can rally around. In about all cases, community partakers will associate the software, but it's imaginable to develop a society around a business or a hobby. An instance may be if you compose software for horse breeding -- the society might be centered on horse care, and the software could be a subset in the society. The most effective online communities distinctly determine the commonality among its members.
8. Be Open to Community
Many MicroISV's make the error of attempting to direct the conversation in their forum by asphyxiating criticism and editing posts that are negative. This could be a huge error! Software corporations that see criticism, even public critique, as a chance can then apply that criticism as a chance to shine. Most society partakers won't evaluate the software company grounded on the factual criticism, but will respond more to how the corporation reacts to the criticism. Turn the negative posts into favorable solutions, and community partakers will help you.
9. Advertize It
Include links and data on the community on your internet site, within your software, and in your sales lit. A society must be advertized in order to develop, expand, and truly succeed.
Building up a software society is not a fresh concept, but by developing the process you can with success create a virtual community that gets an advocate for your software.
It is substantially interpreted that niche goods have a lower need but a more high-pitched price. Developers who distribute into a niche are capable to charge a premium as the developer sees the particular demands in the niche. The cost of niche or vertical software package is as well generally higher as the marketplace segment is smaller and there's generally less competition.
Price Reductions
It is general practice to propose clients price breaks for scaled purchases. Conceive setting up a skidding scale so that the more package the client buys the larger the discount they get.
Keep Pricing Updated
A lot of developers leave money on the table when pricing software package upgrades. This is a general error. Existing clients are an fantabulous source of income. Charge a nominative fee for version updates.
Internet Site Licenses
Site certifies are an elaboration of amount discounts and can bring in important revenue from big corporations.
OEM Pricing
OEM corresponds to Original Equipment Manufacturer and it is while a corporation sells goods (including software package) under its own label, that include applied science accredited from additional marketer. Volume is decisive for OEM deals to be fruitful. In about all OEM dialogues gross margins are small but amounts are large.
Educational or Non-Profit-Making Reductions
It is not unusual to give educational reductions, or discounts to non-profits. There's no "distinctive" educational reductions. Reductions can alter from ten per cent to 90 per cent off of the list cost. If this is a commercializing section you trade to, keep a discount measure in mind when fixing the price, as a lot of non-profits and educational establishments are accustom to having reductions, and may be hold over by not getting one.
Reseller Reductions
Resellers can broaden your gross revenue force. When fixating a price it is crucial to conceive the function resellers will take in the goods success. If the application program is priced too cheap, resellers won't have an incentive to advocate the software - nor will their be much gross profit for you to apportion with these resellers.
Small software corporations that establish a community about their products can profit from buzz marketing. Community partakers will frequently evangelize software, help with support enquiries, and lend believability to your application. In addition, the community partakers will frequently detail real life situations that led in the apply of the software in an effective manner. These forms of endorsements are invaluable.
Local software package "user groups" were once a foundation in the success of a software package application. With the infiltration of the World Wide Web into daily lives, geographical limits are no longer an obstruction. The contemporary user teams have turned virtual internet communities, comprising partakers from a wide range of cultures and positions. In order to create an effective community, software package developers can learn from the user teams that were once an expanding BBS sub-culture.
Apply such tips to create your Software Society...
1. Notification Of Communicating
Developers must talk effectively with their software society. Offer a broad variety of communication instruments, so that community partakers can pick out their wanted communication way. Developers should propose electronic mail updates, RSS feeds, user BBS, and so forth. Alerts should be set up to advise concerned parties on fresh releases, good sweetenings, or other data that might be of concern. Pre-release editions can as well be proposed to the most dynamic community partakers, which will make them experience special and apprized.
2. Reputation Indicant
Apply a tool that will appraise the community player's reputation. Reputation indicants can be ascertained by the deal of posts, length of engagement, or the quality of graded posts. There are a deal of forum accessories that can be applied to mechanically appraise a members reputation. Speak to your forum provider to assure what accessories are available that could assist with supervising the reputation of forum partakers.
3. Good Emotions
Produce good will by keeping going the community, whether financially by patronizing meet-ups, or by allowing a forum for them to put across in a meaningful approach.
4. Rewards For Engagement
Whether you apply a points structure, a post indicant, or a listing of top posters, study rewarding community engagement by providing beta imitates or gratis upgrades to lead posters. Disregarding whether the points have any real value, partakers will want to see their evaluation growth over time.
5. Expertness
Make community partakers to effectively "social bookmark" occupying items that associate with your software good line. The communal look of social bookmarking is most efficient when a scaled deal of the social community partakers indorse, bookmark, or "ballot" for a particular item.
6. Boost Engagement
Enlarge the number of community members to intensively take part. Conceive giving them duties. For instance, you might prefer to give moderation reach to a participant who is exceedingly intensive and knowledgeable about the good. Or, if they're keenly acquainted with 3rd-party accessory applications, encourage them to discourse this data and possibly build tutorials. Occasionally partakers will be loath to volunteer such matters, as they fear exceeding their role in the society; but encouragement can be salutary to all sides.
7. Determine Commonality
The online society must have a general theme that all partakers in the society can rally around. In about all cases, community partakers will associate the software, but it's imaginable to develop a society around a business or a hobby. An instance may be if you compose software for horse breeding -- the society might be centered on horse care, and the software could be a subset in the society. The most effective online communities distinctly determine the commonality among its members.
8. Be Open to Community
Many MicroISV's make the error of attempting to direct the conversation in their forum by asphyxiating criticism and editing posts that are negative. This could be a huge error! Software corporations that see criticism, even public critique, as a chance can then apply that criticism as a chance to shine. Most society partakers won't evaluate the software company grounded on the factual criticism, but will respond more to how the corporation reacts to the criticism. Turn the negative posts into favorable solutions, and community partakers will help you.
9. Advertize It
Include links and data on the community on your internet site, within your software, and in your sales lit. A society must be advertized in order to develop, expand, and truly succeed.
Building up a software society is not a fresh concept, but by developing the process you can with success create a virtual community that gets an advocate for your software.
Software Patching Too Much Trouble For Most
The U.S. government is so flummoxed by the insecurity of computers that it has launched a contest to find someone who can create an effective way to educate people about computer security.
It's clear there's a problem. Recent legal action in Spain and in Virginia against the Mariposa botnet and the Waledac botnet, two of the ten largest botnets that controlled tens of millions of hijacked computers, offers a reminder of just how many compromised computers are out there. These aren't just personal computers either; many of the infected machines have been found in major corporations and banks.
While education can reduce the number of malware infections by helping users to understand that the joke in e-mail messages with subject lines like "LOL! Check this out!" is on the recipient, in the form of malware, the defensive value of timely patching shouldn't be overlooked.
The problem with patching, unfortunately, is that it's too much trouble for the average user. A research paper by Stefan Frei, research analyst director at Secunia, and Thomas Kristensen, CSO at Secunia, released earlier this week at the RSA Conference, finds that the complexity and frequency of patching software vulnerabilities tends to exceed what users are able and willing to invest.
According to Frei and Kristensen, 50% of users have software from more than 22 different vendors that are affected by at least 75 security advisories issued by Secunia every year.
"Thus, a typical end-user has the daunting task to administer his host approximately 75 times a year (or every 4.8 days), thereby handling approximately 22 different update mechanisms to keep his/her system secure," the paper states.
The obvious solution to this problem is a single automated update mechanism.
Automated updating is not free from controversy. Typically it takes place without real-time notice and consent, relying instead on past notice and consent. It's generally not a problem when done by a trusted party, but there's still some potential for misuse.
Apple has already caught on to the benefits of automated updates, as can be seen in the way it updates software for iPhones and iPods through iTunes. Users don't have to make much of an effort to keep all the software on their iPhones and iPods up-to-date.
Google has realized this too. The always-up-to-date status of Google Apps has long been a selling point, as it is with any cloud-based software. The company also keeps its desktop software like Google Pack and Google Chrome up-to-date using an automatic update mechanism.
Secunia is the latest company to advocate this approach. That's unsurprising, given that Frei co-authored a paper demonstrating the effectiveness of Google's automatic browser updates prior to joining Secunia, when he worked at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).
Kristensen says that in the coming months, Secunia will release software that will "forever will change the updating experience on Microsoft Window systems."
Secunica plans to launch a technology preview of Automatic Updating for private users, which will be incorporated into its Personal Software Inspector (PSI) 2.0.
Mac OS X and Linux users will have to continue to patch their software manually for the time being. But they don't really face the same attention from cybercriminals as Windows users.
It's clear there's a problem. Recent legal action in Spain and in Virginia against the Mariposa botnet and the Waledac botnet, two of the ten largest botnets that controlled tens of millions of hijacked computers, offers a reminder of just how many compromised computers are out there. These aren't just personal computers either; many of the infected machines have been found in major corporations and banks.
While education can reduce the number of malware infections by helping users to understand that the joke in e-mail messages with subject lines like "LOL! Check this out!" is on the recipient, in the form of malware, the defensive value of timely patching shouldn't be overlooked.
The problem with patching, unfortunately, is that it's too much trouble for the average user. A research paper by Stefan Frei, research analyst director at Secunia, and Thomas Kristensen, CSO at Secunia, released earlier this week at the RSA Conference, finds that the complexity and frequency of patching software vulnerabilities tends to exceed what users are able and willing to invest.
According to Frei and Kristensen, 50% of users have software from more than 22 different vendors that are affected by at least 75 security advisories issued by Secunia every year.
"Thus, a typical end-user has the daunting task to administer his host approximately 75 times a year (or every 4.8 days), thereby handling approximately 22 different update mechanisms to keep his/her system secure," the paper states.
The obvious solution to this problem is a single automated update mechanism.
Automated updating is not free from controversy. Typically it takes place without real-time notice and consent, relying instead on past notice and consent. It's generally not a problem when done by a trusted party, but there's still some potential for misuse.
Apple has already caught on to the benefits of automated updates, as can be seen in the way it updates software for iPhones and iPods through iTunes. Users don't have to make much of an effort to keep all the software on their iPhones and iPods up-to-date.
Google has realized this too. The always-up-to-date status of Google Apps has long been a selling point, as it is with any cloud-based software. The company also keeps its desktop software like Google Pack and Google Chrome up-to-date using an automatic update mechanism.
Secunia is the latest company to advocate this approach. That's unsurprising, given that Frei co-authored a paper demonstrating the effectiveness of Google's automatic browser updates prior to joining Secunia, when he worked at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).
Kristensen says that in the coming months, Secunia will release software that will "forever will change the updating experience on Microsoft Window systems."
Secunica plans to launch a technology preview of Automatic Updating for private users, which will be incorporated into its Personal Software Inspector (PSI) 2.0.
Mac OS X and Linux users will have to continue to patch their software manually for the time being. But they don't really face the same attention from cybercriminals as Windows users.
VisualRoute 2009 14.0b
VisualRoute helps determine if a connectivity problem is due to an ISP, the Internet, or the web site you -- or your customers -- are trying to reach, and pinpoints the network where a problem occurs. VisualRoute 2005 is available in five specialized editions, enabling on-demand connectivity analysis from a single computer, a remote customer desktop, a remote server, or multiple points on a global network.
AMD tries to draw Intel into chip battle
Intel refuses to bite, saying it knows its customers very well and doesn't need to engage in contests
AMD is offering prizes to drum up more interest ahead of this month's launch of its 12-core server chip, as rival Intel also has server-chip launch plans.
AMD will award prizes valued at $8,189 to the person who best describes in an essay, video or blog post how to use 48 cores in a server, according to a blog entry by John Fruehe, director of product marketing for servers and workstations products at AMD. The prizes are a copy of Windows Server 2008 and four Opteron 12-core processors running at 2.2 GHz, which adds up to 48 cores in a four-socket server.
[ Earlier today, Intel said it would launch the eight-core Nehalem-EX this month. | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]
AMD is already shipping Magny-Cours processors, which will be called Opteron 6100 after they officially launch, to manufacturers. The server chips will be officially announced and available through retail channels later this month.
In the blog entry, Fruehe said the Magny-Cours chip would offer more memory channels than Intel's upcoming Westmere-EP server products. Intel said it will release its Westmere-EP server processors, which will include up to six cores, and the eight-core Nehalem-EX server processor by the end of this month. Intel will launch the chips under the Xeon product line.
AMD's chip will contain the highest number of cores in an x86 server processor, analysts said. The contest may be a way for AMD to showcase the number of cores in comparison to Intel chips to capture the performance crown, analysts said.
Intel and AMD reverted to adding cores to boost chip performance earlier in the decade, as cranking up clock speed led to excessive heat dissipation and power consumption. Adding cores to server chips continues, even though the battle has cooled off at four cores for consumer desktop and laptop processors, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
Server manufacturers are always looking to boost performance, and thousands of cores are being added to supercomputers in the high-performance computing space to do complex math calculations, McCarron said.
AMD's 12-core chip will provide good boost in performance over Intel's Westmere-EP chips as it has more computing resources at work, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. However, the real battle will be between AMD's 12-core Magny-Cours and Intel's eight-core Nehalem-EX chip, which are both targeted at four-socket servers.
However, Intel insisted it won't launch a competition or offer prizes to drum up attention behind its chips.
"We don't need a contest to figure out what our customers are going to do with our products," said Shannon Poulin, Xeon platform director at Intel.
Users care less about cores than they do about price and performance-per-watt, Poulin said. An excessive number of cores could add to the software licensing costs for customers, Poulin said.
However, analysts agreed that beyond the number of cores, factors such as on-chip cache, RAM and memory bandwidth help improve system performance. Intel is putting four memory channels in the Nehalem-EX chips, which puts it on par with AMD's Magny-Cours chip.
For most enterprise applications, memory throughput is a significant contributor to performance, McCarron said. For example, memory bandwidth matters for large databases as they try to get data to the RAM as quickly as possible.
Poulin also said that Intel holds a manufacturing advantage that allows it to put more on-chip cache in its microprocessors than its competitors, while delivering power savings, performance and better prices than its earlier chips. However, AMD's Fruehe argued that "customers don't buy nanometers, they buy products."
Transistor size is one attribute of the processor, but the architecture behind it is just as critical, Fruehe said. AMD's chips will size up well on power consumption and performance compared to Intel's upcoming server chips, Fruehe said.
Intel's Nehalem-EX holds an architectural advantage with new features like error correction, but AMD may offer better bang-for-the-buck with its Magny-Cours chips, especially as users migrate from two-socket to four-socket servers, analyst Brookwood said.
"AMD is going to change the economics as they bring out the new systems," Brookwood said. Intel may charge a premium for the Nehalem-EX chips, which could go into new markets traditionally dominated by chips based on the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture, like IBM's Power and Sun's Sparc chips, he said.
"It's going to be an interesting year in the x86 server market. Both companies are executing well." Brookwood said.
AMD is offering prizes to drum up more interest ahead of this month's launch of its 12-core server chip, as rival Intel also has server-chip launch plans.
AMD will award prizes valued at $8,189 to the person who best describes in an essay, video or blog post how to use 48 cores in a server, according to a blog entry by John Fruehe, director of product marketing for servers and workstations products at AMD. The prizes are a copy of Windows Server 2008 and four Opteron 12-core processors running at 2.2 GHz, which adds up to 48 cores in a four-socket server.
[ Earlier today, Intel said it would launch the eight-core Nehalem-EX this month. | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]
AMD is already shipping Magny-Cours processors, which will be called Opteron 6100 after they officially launch, to manufacturers. The server chips will be officially announced and available through retail channels later this month.
In the blog entry, Fruehe said the Magny-Cours chip would offer more memory channels than Intel's upcoming Westmere-EP server products. Intel said it will release its Westmere-EP server processors, which will include up to six cores, and the eight-core Nehalem-EX server processor by the end of this month. Intel will launch the chips under the Xeon product line.
AMD's chip will contain the highest number of cores in an x86 server processor, analysts said. The contest may be a way for AMD to showcase the number of cores in comparison to Intel chips to capture the performance crown, analysts said.
Intel and AMD reverted to adding cores to boost chip performance earlier in the decade, as cranking up clock speed led to excessive heat dissipation and power consumption. Adding cores to server chips continues, even though the battle has cooled off at four cores for consumer desktop and laptop processors, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
Server manufacturers are always looking to boost performance, and thousands of cores are being added to supercomputers in the high-performance computing space to do complex math calculations, McCarron said.
AMD's 12-core chip will provide good boost in performance over Intel's Westmere-EP chips as it has more computing resources at work, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. However, the real battle will be between AMD's 12-core Magny-Cours and Intel's eight-core Nehalem-EX chip, which are both targeted at four-socket servers.
However, Intel insisted it won't launch a competition or offer prizes to drum up attention behind its chips.
"We don't need a contest to figure out what our customers are going to do with our products," said Shannon Poulin, Xeon platform director at Intel.
Users care less about cores than they do about price and performance-per-watt, Poulin said. An excessive number of cores could add to the software licensing costs for customers, Poulin said.
However, analysts agreed that beyond the number of cores, factors such as on-chip cache, RAM and memory bandwidth help improve system performance. Intel is putting four memory channels in the Nehalem-EX chips, which puts it on par with AMD's Magny-Cours chip.
For most enterprise applications, memory throughput is a significant contributor to performance, McCarron said. For example, memory bandwidth matters for large databases as they try to get data to the RAM as quickly as possible.
Poulin also said that Intel holds a manufacturing advantage that allows it to put more on-chip cache in its microprocessors than its competitors, while delivering power savings, performance and better prices than its earlier chips. However, AMD's Fruehe argued that "customers don't buy nanometers, they buy products."
Transistor size is one attribute of the processor, but the architecture behind it is just as critical, Fruehe said. AMD's chips will size up well on power consumption and performance compared to Intel's upcoming server chips, Fruehe said.
Intel's Nehalem-EX holds an architectural advantage with new features like error correction, but AMD may offer better bang-for-the-buck with its Magny-Cours chips, especially as users migrate from two-socket to four-socket servers, analyst Brookwood said.
"AMD is going to change the economics as they bring out the new systems," Brookwood said. Intel may charge a premium for the Nehalem-EX chips, which could go into new markets traditionally dominated by chips based on the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture, like IBM's Power and Sun's Sparc chips, he said.
"It's going to be an interesting year in the x86 server market. Both companies are executing well." Brookwood said.