The commercial version

doublewitt
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The commercial version

Postby doublewitt » Sat May 30, 2009 1:09 pm

:arrow: According to the roadmap, there will be a commercial version released. Is there a tentative date for this? Will it be relatively soon? Can you share some information about this project? Ofcourse, we ask questions because this is a nice piece of software - interesting & useful!
Last edited by doublewitt on Wed Jun 10, 2009 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The commercial version

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Mon Jun 01, 2009 8:08 am

doublewitt wrote::arrow: According to the roadmap, there will be a commercial version released. Is there a tentative date for this? Will it be relatively soon? Can you share some information about this project? Ofcourse, we ask questions because this is a nice piece of software - interesting & useful!

Hello doublewitt, and welcome to the forum!

Thanks for your interest. Yes, you are right, there will be a commercial version of CintaNotes. I know we all love free software, but the point here is, I really enjoy making CintaNotes (and hopefully it shows in the product), and the only way I can devote really much time to it (which is more than necessary if the roadmap is ever going to be halfway done) is if CintaNotes becomes my day job. That's why I've decided to try doing a commercial version and seeing if it's gonna work this way.

As you probably know, the members of this forum who helped CintaNotes in any way while it was in Beta phase will get the commercial license from me for free.

I plan to release the first commercial version optimistically by the end of this summer, realistically in the early fall.
The big question is which features would go into the commercial version. I don't want to put all the goodies into it so that the free version is stripped down and not very interesting for anybody. On the other hand, putting in too little of benefits will give people no incentive to buy the product. As they say, you don't sell the commercial version, you sell the difference between the commercial and the free version.
So I really try to strike the balance between the two extremes.

As for now, I plan to prioritize those features which are easier to implement. And of course I count in the user votes here on the forum. I guess the following features will appear in the commercial version first:
- Parse clipped HTML for links;
- Advanced search with regular expressions;
- Notebook encryption;
- Template-based export & import

I'm also considering making Multiple Notebook support, Tab-based note categories and Advanced backup commercial features, but still haven't decided yet. One thing is for sure - later on, adding features to the free version would be much easier than removing them (which is all by itself a big no-no).

The other question is the price. I guess it will be somewhere in the range from $30 to $50. Charging less would make little sense for me, because I see CintaNotes as a work of art, and it can't be that cheap ;) (Probably I should be more humble, with all that plethora of free software out there, but hey, why not try at least).

The free version will also evolve, some features (but not all) from the commercial version will also appear there (with a more-than-a-year delay, and by that time the commercial version will be much more ahead). The overall UI polishing and of course bugfixing will take place.

Well, that's how I see the future now. Maybe I'm wrong, but let's see what it brings. And I'm as always open to reasonable suggestions;)
Alex
doublewitt
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Re: The commercial version

Postby doublewitt » Tue Jun 02, 2009 1:50 am

I'm glad to see your interest is alive! Long live the Cinta madness :shock:

about business...
well, I tend to see it this way...
When you want to introduce a "product" for sale, it sometimes is difficult to know what to emphasize. Many software developers (because of the time-implication) and many other "good" reasons, think to "emphasize" the real value of their artwork, which is understandable - but - the business world doesn't always work that way. It's a world of competitiveness and daring. The tendancy being that when the real value is emphasized, then the hefty price tag follows - and yes, this is perfectly understandable - certainly, but in business practice, this doesn't always promote long term activity. In business, different things are emphasized, such as "volume" of purchases or users. In general, the hefty price tag brings in low sales and volume. And on the contrary, the lower price tag does produce different results. There are many valuable benefits to a "volume" of users (buyers) such as site-ranking, traffic, income, and a healthy, active community. In plain simple logic, when you evaluate the following equation, you quickly grasp the concept of "volume" vs hefty price.
100 copies at $50.00 = $5000.00
1000 copies at $25.00 = $25,000.00

In the long run, you will get that "value" you are looking for through a volume of sales with all the added benefits. No doubt, you will sell more copies at a reasonable price. You will also create more incentive for the free version users to switch to and recommend your shareware version to others. Word-of-mouth will promote effectively when the price is right (happy people always have something to tell), when it's too high, sales will drop... word-of-mouth will stop... and no telling what will happen after that. So it's very important to set the price right when launching the commercial version. When evaluating your initial price strategy, keep in mind that if you are targeting a volume of sales, then the lower price will get you there much faster and easier.

In any case, I'm looking forward to developments! Thanks for this wonderful software.
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Re: The commercial version

Postby Midas » Tue Jun 02, 2009 12:15 pm

Following up doublewitt's remarks, let me add my 2 ¢...

:geek: I believe there are only two basic strategies to thrive in an perfect competition market:

1. price differentiation -- where you strive to outprice the competition, either by selling a cheaper standard product or by selling more standard product for the same price;

2. quality differentiation -- where you have the advantage of a unique product, allowing for a broader margin in price setting.

Every other market strategy is some kind of compound of these two. I believe that, by being free, CintaNotes has up to now beaten the competition by utilising 1.; but it is clear that, by way of its developing model and proposed array of features, it has been placing itself advantageously to go the way of 2.

Let's watch and wait -- if nothing else, it will be enlightening...
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