Why isn't Rev more popular?

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Thu Dec 1 15:07:08 EST 2005


Pondering the many posts in this thread I'm not sure I could contribute 
much of value, since Chipp covered many of my own thoughts, esp. re. the 
usefulness of a US presence and the need for a completely unambiguous 
differentiation between the pro and hobbyist products.

But I did have one thought that I hadn't read here yet:


     Just how popular does Rev need to be?


RunRev Ltd. has been doing a good job of expanding the user base, as 
evidenced by the many newcomers on this list over the last year (and a 
hearty welcome to y'all!).  And it seems they have plans in store to 
continue along those lines, perhaps even more effectively in this coming 
year than ever before.

But given the various factors that go into choosing programming tools, 
I'm not sure Rev will ever become the world leader, nor need it be.

If we look at the downstream economy from Rev-based products, taking 
into account the aggregate sum of all cost savings to developers, 
publishers, and end-users, there's certainly plenty of money floating 
around to keep the engine well updated and enhanced in perpetuity. 
That's great for us.

And as long as RunRev Ltd. is appropriately "right-sized" (please pardon 
the corporate-speak), there's no reason why it can't be quite profitable 
  for the owners, even at the current audience size.  Extra bonus points 
that the audience is growing as well as it is.  That's great for them.

Given the state of things as they are today, I see less of a risk of Rev 
not growing fast enough than I do in attempting to grow beyond what the 
market will support.

It's really easy to spend money trying to be the next Macromedia, and so 
much work to do so that it may be easy to overlook that there already is 
one, and to overlook the many historical opportunities which helped 
bring them to where they are, circumstances that are not reproducible 
today (such as having the world's first plugin bundling agreement for 
Flash).

Sure, there may be a temptation for the owners to try to make billions, 
and there is an attraction for us users if Rev took over the world so we 
could say "I told you so" to everyone else. :)

But there's plenty of money available to profitably support what the 
engine needs to keep moving forward, even now.

For myself, I'm not at all worried about viability or profitability.  My 
greater concern is about reach.

Geoffrey Moore talks about market adoption of technologies in his books 
"Crossing the Chasm" and "Inside the Tornado".  I won't get into the 
details here (but would encourage any software publisher to read these 
twice), but the most relevant concept here is how in a technology market 
there will be only one leader, and all other players must subdivide the 
remainder.  Given the power of larger firms like Microsoft I doubt Rev 
will ever overtake tools like VB.  If the good folks at RunRev 
understand the rules of engagement for being a lower-tier player, they 
can do well.  But if they attempt to take over the world, they risk 
exhausting all resources in the effort.

Thus far I've seen only healthy growth activities that don't yet 
evidence a desire to reach beyond what is possible.  I just hope they 
don't take everything posted here too seriously and start distracting 
themselves from their reachable goals to go tilting at windmills.

There is only one market leader, but there are many highly profitable 
companies at all levels of participation.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com



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