Re: Major interview

["malonowa" <malonowa@wanadoo.fr>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: samedi 4 septembre 1999 04:23
Subject: Re: Major interview


> At 03:26 PM 9/3/99 -0400, Michael Williams wrote [in part]:
> >>>  do you need the applications to be free of charge?
> >>
> >No. I would pay a reasonable price for a functional, easy to learn/use
> >application.
> >
> >>> If not, what kind of price do you think would be reasonable?
> >>
> >Got me there! Maybe something along the range of say $0.10 to
> >$1.00 per seat for a district wide 'license'.
>
> Interesting number. I took a fast look at the www.topologika.com (the site
> Roman mentioned in one of his recent postings) and found that they
typically
> want 50-60 UK pounds (about US$100, right?), or twice the single-copy
price,
> for a "site" license (which I assume is one school). Given typical school
> sizes, this fits nicely into the range you suggested.
>
> So what about it, anyone else on the list who actually buys software for
> schools? Would you buy educational Linux apps in this price range or not?
(I
> won't try to convey a sense of what you're buying; the topologika Web
site,
> which includes some downloadable demos for Windows, does that better than
I
> can.) Concrete feedback on the pricing question will do more to encourage
> (or discourage, if you say no) commercial developers than more abstract
> discussions of philosophy and the needs of schools.

I'd like to point out here that in England the ed. system has a long history
of licensing on a district level as well. This can result in much greater
cost savings often making the cost per seat almost negligible. These
companies are usually only interested in educating children and not going
broke - not huge profits - hence are very flexible when it comes to pricing
on this sort of thing. I'd hate to think that any of you might put a company
like Topologika in the same league as Micro$oft. It's not at all about
capitalism - more ensuring that everyone involved has something to live on.

Roman.