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Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

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Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#31

Post by giancarlostoro »

diamondo25 wrote: post #28
giancarlostoro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here. This is why I bought all the JetBrains IDE's as a personal license, aside from my student graduation discount, all these IDE's allow me to be seriously productive at work. I do not regret buying JetBrains at all, had it been a thousand dollars I would of probably have thought twice, but the value it returns to me is worth it honestly. I'm definitely more productive with the JetBrains toolset.

Exactly the same for me. Although I do not use all tools at the same time, I still feel the money was worth it. I have thought to do the same with Visual Studio, but VS Community Edition + ReSharper is basically VS Ultimate. For HexRays... Its a really high price, and its software I don't make full use of, so i just keep working on the older, leaked versions instead.

I don't use every tool, but I still find it worth it. I mostly use PyCharm, WebStorm, DataGrip (if you do any SQL work give it a try!) and of course ReSharper. I don't see Rider as "ready" yet, seems to not support opening up some of my .NET Core solutions still. Hoping it becomes stable and usable like regular VS.

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#32

Post by vetinari »

voltagex_ wrote: post #7
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close is qgis to parity with ArcGIS? And can qgis interpret openstreetmap data?

I haven't used ArcGIS but I can answer - it's nowhere near MapInfo or even FME, but it's still very very useful in its own right. QGIS really needs more development effort, especially to work within corporate firewalls - I think I can still crash certain versions if they get a 407 back from the update check.

FME and QGIS are not directly comparable.

FME is an ETL tool, using it just for the Data Inspector part would be a waste. In this scenario, QGIS would be also more comfortable and user friendly. On the other hand, QGIS cannot do what is FME's primary use - transform data.

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#34

Post by troydavis »

jdietrich wrote: post #16
derefr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is not why there are any software products priced at more than $1000; it's why the centre of the pricing distribution for many types of software is exactly $1000. Why does a CAD program cost $1000 instead of $800, or $2000, or even $10000? (CAD workstations certainly can cost $10000, so I don't think that's a stupid question.) If this is "freelancer-tier" pricing, and freelancers don't have to worry abou…

$1000 is the purchasing limit in most large enterprises - anything over $1000 needs specific authorization. Buying a product at $999 is completely frictionless, while buying a product for $1001 involves multiple meetings and reams of paperwork. In enterprise purchasing logic, $999 is indistinguishable from free and $1001 might as well be $50,000. Clever software marketers have realized that a $999/mo SaaS product fit…

At least from having sold to a small subset of them, the “most” in “$1000 is the purchasing limit in most large enterprises” isn’t accurate.

Yes, almost every large company has different purchase requisition approval processes based on the amount and often the type of expense, but they vary widely between companies and roles. There’s nothing magical about $1000 vs $500, $250, $0, or $2500. I’m not even sure $1000 is the mode; at least from my small sample, $0 and something larger ($2500 or $5000) are more common.

Also, in nearly all cases I’ve seen, large companies determine the approval process for anything with a monthly fee differently (generally using the total 1-year expense). If it ever existed, the “clever exception” is long gone now that companies buy a lot of SaaS.

Finally, usually larger enterprises are using SAP, Oacle ERP, Coupa, or a similar “Procure to pay” (yes, that’s what the category calls itself) product, and they have really complex approval rules by ledger category, not just amount.

(My own theory is that patio11’s otherwise-good blog post simplified things so far that many readers thought the specific thresholds it gave were a lot more common than they ever were.)

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#36

Post by twobyfour »

If you make $50k/yr (as a freelance headshot photographer in a small town) using Photoshop, a $1000 license plus a $500 upgrade every two years is worth your while. (I'm not up to date on the current subscription pricing but assume it's analagous.) Many people make much more than that per year using such software.

In my current job at a small business, there are things we spend $10k/mo on to make $1M/mo in revenue. Even if we were only making $100k/mo, those costs would not be prohibitive (though we might be looking at reducing them further).

Basically, you have to spend money to make money. If what you spend will allow you to make more than you're spending (and more than you'd make without it), it's worth it. The term many use for that sort of spending is "investment".

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#37

Post by edanm »

p0nce wrote: post #33

Hex Rays and ICC are unmatched. Once you have worked with ICC backend you'll miss it a lot when using say, LLVM. Same story for IDA, I don't think any competitor does something at this level. Photoshop is being displaced by nimbler competitors.

Who do you see displacing Photoshop?

I think Photoshop is still the standard for most things, although I've seen some movement in specific segments (e.g. UX and graphic design).

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#38

Post by toomuchtodo »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close is qgis to parity with ArcGIS? And can qgis interpret openstreetmap data?

1. Pretty close in terms of functionality when it comes to rendering, computation. Not close when it comes to out of the box user friendliness (Arc comes packaged with everything and with QGIS you have to tap into a not-as-well-defined plugin ecosystem that is thousands strong to get the functionality). This is either a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. Also ArcGIS out of the box cartography is completely…

Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Who is the target audience for ~$1000 software?

#39

Post by StrangersAdvice »

StrangersAdvice wrote: post #23
vmarquet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. For more information, see this post https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/enterpris... by patio11.

That was an interesting read. Don't know how much of it to believe though.

why the down votes?
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