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You mean other than Notch, or anyone in the video games business, or the iLife team at Apple, or the Microsoft Office team? Sure. Lots of people are making money from desktop apps. Just because it's not hip or cool these days doesn't mean it's useless.
Evan is a frequent contributor here on HN and it's also worth reading most of his other articles/posts as well.
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I guess you have your question answered than. I was also a BoS forum user since 2008. With the XYZ (Apple, Microsoft) stores these days I wonder if a $39-99 desktop software can truly have success on these compare the the average High-end B2B software can certainly be profitable, I would guess the $500-2500 software coming with support, integration, training etc.
My wife recently became familiar with the Mac AppStore after only ever using the iOS AppStore. Her first comment upon seeing the initial screen was "$19 for an app?? That's crazy!" I cringed a bit. Has the $0.99 app ruined everything for us?
EDIT:
>naysayers or cheapskates
Didn't mean to imply that your wife was one. The thing is, most non-software people don't know enough about all the work [1] that goes into a custom software app, let alone into a shrink-wrapped product (which is much more, if done well). (Using the old term shrink-wrapped, though a lot of software is delivered over the web these days. Same difference :)
[1] Figuring out requirements / features to include, design, development, testing, testing, testing, ... , support, ... , marketing, ..., maintenance, ...
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I sometimes get mails from (not really) customers like: 'can you add feature x of the paid version to the free version?'. The paid version is $4.99 by the way. If you have decent app that solves problems well and you have enough energy left to do some marketing then probably you can make a decent living. Or you have a lot of luck, then no problems at all. But if you hope that customers find you by themselfes, maybe y…
This very very sad ... I really don't understand how someone can Live from 0.9 - 4.9 $ apps
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This very very sad ... I really don't understand how someone can Live from 0.9 - 4.9 $ apps
There are tons of companies and even microISVs that make a good living or more, from desktop apps, in both the developed and less developed worlds. (But they are not 5$ apps.) Hell, there are many small and medium software companies in India (for example) that were doing good business (and probably still are) with Clipper / XBase apps for small businesses, on (gasp!) DOS, to take just one area (of both tech and domai…
You mean other than Notch, or anyone in the video games business, or the iLife team at Apple, or the Microsoft Office team? Sure. Lots of people are making money from desktop apps. Just because it's not hip or cool these days doesn't mean it's useless.
Heh, good comment about Notch, and the others you mention too. For those who don't know, from the Wikipedia article about Notch - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson :
"He is planning to stop working on this game after a recent deal with Microsoft to sell Minecraft for 2.5 billion dollars."
A huge outlier, of course, but the potential exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This very very sad ... I really don't understand how someone can Live from 0.9 - 4.9 $ apps
There are tons of companies and even microISVs that make a good living or more, from desktop apps, in both the developed and less developed worlds. (But they are not 5$ apps.) Hell, there are many small and medium software companies in India (for example) that were doing good business (and probably still are) with Clipper / XBase apps for small businesses, on (gasp!) DOS, to take just one area (of both tech and domai…
This is the canonical article I point people to when this question comes up: http://www.evanmiller.org/why-i-develop-for-the-mac.html Evan is a frequent contributor here on HN and it's also worth reading most of his other articles/posts as well.