Why is Konfabulator 'Pretty?'

[MisterX]

Ken, lovely answer (quoted below)...

I think that if rev re-implemented userlevels they not only would make rev
more hypercard like (and prevent customers from modifying our guis as Bill
said), but they would deliver a better economic pricing in a more satisfying
way to their marketing avoiding the jaleousy of developpers paying 10X more
for like capabilities (as Richard feels economically at risk)...

Rev development for free doesn't help the developper market - though other
competitive packages exists - it's not in rev's favor no matter how much we
customers would like to look at it. As Marielle said so well...

On the other hand, as David Bovil proposed, making the MetaCard environment
(no xp or osx skinning, no sql or enterprise tools) - would create a side
economy that could boost the popularity of Rev inviting more serious
professionals to their Pro-IDE studio or enterprise framework. What have
they got to loose?

Rev could also exploit revonline far better to this end (think paypal etc)
but that's another story in the economy market rev is in or could be in
(given the resources they lack)... 

So far, Rev has done a great job, but the engine is "visibly" aging as far
as im concerned... And new commers wont be atracted with that facet - not
many from the PC world I know - and that's the business enterprise PC world
running the markets of IT IOWs, solaris, oracle, PCs, novell, EMC, etc...
Common place? read the register some time to see how often they appear as
the major players in IT...

Rev's quality has gone up (not as high as expected) but high enough that it
becomes a rival for other IDEs - all have their errors - Rev has easiness
with it which no others offer in terms of GUI design to fishined product
cycle or efficiency or maintenance cycles. Performance is above acceptable
in 90 % of the cases...

For the 10 % percent, rev is really lame... And this hurts too in this world
I work in... (100s of thousands of network admins) BUT rev is working on it,
each rev engineer each with his 4 arms is doing their best to please
everyone (im not displeased with Rev's collaborator's choices)... 

Alas still a bit too mac OS oriented... If the rev team used 1/2 PC, 1/2 osx
and 1/2 linux (osx and pc) developpers, im sure we would see a lot more
revolution in IDE terms for this "perfect" object based development
environment...

I still wait to see mentioned in slashdot. I just don't have the words to
make it noteworthy - but such skills are not far from the mailist...
Question is whether the rev team is ready to handly that kind of criticism
later... respond to the support queries? Assume SLA and real support
contracts like we demand in the industry when production tools goes haywire
in a billion dollar market transaction moment... That would be something in
Rev's record no enterprise client could ignore...

Viva la revolution...
Xavier
http://monsieurx.com/taoo - wilder than Rev but only with rev synergy ;)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com 
> [mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of Ken Ray
> Sent: Friday, 09 December, 2005 20:20
> To: Use Revolution List
> Subject: Re: Why is Konfabulator 'Pretty?'
> 
> > You have two products for two different markets.
> > We educators/hobbyists would like dreamcard to be 
> distributed for free 
> > across the world. Professionals like Richard, Chipp and Ken 
> and others 
> > are worried about keeping their competitive advantage and have the 
> > tool remain expensive and relatively unknown (at the very least 
> > maintain the existence of a cost of switching via the 
> license fee and 
> > time to learn).
> 
> As Richard stated his position on this, I'll state mine as 
> well. I'm not concerned about competitive advantage at all, 
> and won't be until RunRev becomes as popular as JavaScript 
> (one of my hopes!). :-)
> 
> Personally I don't think of Rev as a $99 tool (even without 
> standalone building capabilities). It's worth far more to me 
> than that. Ten years ago, I saw it as a $995 tool (which is 
> why I bought into it then), but that was when other tools of 
> its ilk were as high priced. Personally I see it as a
> $595 tool (or maybe $495) - expensive enough that the profit 
> margins are high so that more money can be spent on further 
> development. At $99, there is very little profit margin 
> relative to potential support issues, IMHO.
> 
> But since I'm not running the company, it doesn't matter. :-)
> 
> Regardless of my *feelings* on this, I would like everyone to 
> know about Revolution, which is why I have personally trained 
> a handful of people on the product, and have evangelized it 
> to everyone I know.
> 
> 
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software
> Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com