Rev 2.02/New pricing

[Chipp Walters]

Geoff,

> There seem to be three arguments against the Express closing screen:
>
> 1. Potential clients/developers won't want the closing screen on their
> apps.
>     Answer: get Studio or Enterprise.
>
> 2. End Users will be frustrated by the closing screen.
>     Answer: it is (my understanding) brief and somewhat entertaining.
>

Forget these two...the issue is not even this third one...

> 3. Potential clients/developers will be turned off by the perceived
> lack of quality in Revolution-developed apps because awareness that a
> given app was created with Revolution will correlate with the
> newest/least serious developers.
>     Answer: this is the hardest to answer. The decline of Director is
> being blamed on the "Made with Director" campaign. Could that campaign
> also be credited with the previous success of Director? The product had
> a very good run. Maybe the right business plan is to gain awareness
> with such a campaign only until you see traction in the marketplace,
> and then pull the campaign and let your product speak with its own (now
> much louder) voice?

Now, it's plain to me, as an employee, you are doing your best to support
this policy. But have you really stopped and thought about this issue
carefully? I, too, am invested in the success of RR, not only from an
financial investor's viewpoint, but even moreso from a developer's one.

WE are not saying the splash screen killed Director -- that's NOT the main
point here. What we're saying is it killed the perception of the kind of
quality apps which can be made by Director. Referring to HyperCard (as you
did in another post) also, isn't the point. Not many of us attempted to sell
large-scale Enterprise apps on the HyperCard platform.

Here's the main point: The success of Revolution, ultimately, is a function
of a strong developer community and the perception of RR's ability to
accomplish real programming.

What ended up killing Director was the lack of both of the above.

Once it was perceived that Director was not powerful enough to create real
projects, no amount of discussion, nor examples could change the minds of
customers. Once *that* happened, it was only a matter of time until Director
died -- as the strong developer community left Director in favor of other
authoring tools.

The thought of many simpleton standalones at 2.5Mb each with the RR logo
blasted across them seems a sure fire way to create the impression that RR
is not a professional tool. Once this impression is created, it will be VERY
difficult to change. This in-product advertising is NOT in the best interest
of RR or it's developers.

Your many and quick-witted replies to this subject indicates to me this is
serious issue. I suggest your time (and ours) may be better spent in trying
to find another way to 'cripple' the low-end edition...or at least say, "We
will consider this request."

--Chipp