Vote to disable password protection for revMedia 4 stacks

[William Marriott]

There are many reasons why we opted to make revMedia a free product. 
I'll detail some of them here:

1) Students. To be candid, the greatest source of our current customers 
is former HyperCard users. This community is aging, and we must appeal 
to the next generations. Students, especially those in high school, 
often do not have credit cards. So we want to make it easy for them, as 
individuals, to acquire a great tool to learn programming -- and enjoy 
both immediate and long-term results/success. On a broader level, we 
want to make it very easy for schools and other educational groups to 
teach Rev to students. Free enables that.

2) Ubiquity. We definitely want revlets popping up all over the place. 
We'll be crafting nice "made with Rev" badges and other sorts of 
programs to encourage the viral distribution of Rev-based content. One 
of our greatest challenges right now is simple awareness. People don't 
know we exist, much less our distinct benefits relative to other Web 
coding options. Adobe and Microsoft have enormous advantages in this 
arena. Adobe Flash is available on just about every platform out there, 
including some mobile ones. Microsoft Silveright benefits from a vast 
installed base of .NET Programmers and their usual marketing machine. 
Anyone going to a Microsoft page gets prompted to install Silverlight, 
for example. Our advantage in being free lets people spend the time to 
learn our capabilities and produce great content with our tool.

3) Great content everyone can see. We have witnessed some truly amazing 
Rev solutions over the years, but we need more of them. Increasing the 
number of people using Rev ensures we will get fresh blood, new ideas, 
beautiful graphics, innovative applications. We're hard at work at 
renovating services like revOnline (like we did in 3.5) to make it 
easier for people to share and promote thier Rev-based work. 
Furthermore, it's far easier [and safer] for newcomers to see Rev in 
action when they can just click a couple times to install a plugin, then 
enjoy fast revlet downloads, as opposed to downloading and 
extracting/installing a standalone application.

4) It's 2009 and the Web is all about FREE. As Richard Gaskin has 
pointed out, the dollar cost of a license is the smallest expense 
associated with using a new product. What is truly expensive is time, 
attention, and effort. In order to earn consideration, we need to 
rethink how people learn about our product. A free trial version isn't 
enough; 30 days isn't enough. 10 lines isn't enough. However, a nicely 
capable free edition (revMedia) that publishes to the Web (today's most 
relevant "platform") is a great way to get people into the "Rev 
lifestyle" and our unique mindset of programming.

5) Revenue. It's a numbers game, and we already know a certain 
percentage of people who get our trial version buy the product; a 
certain number of people who buy revMedia upgrade to revStudio; a 
certain number of revStudio users upgrade to revEnterprise. Increase the 
number of people using Rev, and you increase the number of people buying 
Rev. We do not expect there to be any cannibalization of revStudio or 
revEnterprise sales, as these products have distinct capabilities for 
serious/professional users, such as: database facilities, the data grid, 
the ability to use externals, the ability to remove/replace RunRev 
branding on the loading screen; the ability to make true standalone apps 
for Windows, Mac, and Linux, etc.

As you might imagine, we've done a considerable amount of number 
crunching, analysis, and planning on this front... it's not really about 
philosophy. We're confident this is the best path to dramatically grow 
our user base and ensure a vibrant future for revTalk, a language we all 
have come to love and rely on.

- Bill
   RunRev marketing guy