Massive Price Increase...

[Pain_Man]

The makers of CloneCD has announced a 40% (!) price increase starting 1 JAN 2008.

 

Until then the prices remain the same.

 

They're switching their pricing from dollar to the euro. Their reasoning isn't very well thought out (they site the instability of the dollar; as if the euro stands still), but they're raising prices.

 

Also it isn't clear--at least to me--whether the price increase will affect only those paying in USD or is general. If someone else can figure it out, pls enlighten me.

 

*which (basically) does the same that IB does except for CDs (though it can make 1:1 copies of unimprisoned DVDs, it uses it's own proprietary file format, making it less useful except, e.g., if you were copying some business records or a company training video, etc. The product is perfectly legal, to repeat, it cannot make copies of any CDs/DVDs encumbered with so-called "protections".

[cornholio7]

hi PM,

imgburn will include cd's on the next release if thats of any use to you

[dontasciime]

Their loss

[blutach]

For once, I agree with you PM. I had quite a discussion on CDF about one of their sister products, but I was interested in the price change, not the product.

 

SS is a company which regularly discounts and I expect to see their prices comes back to earth as sales dry up. Put simply, their stuff just ain't worth it in my view.

 

Regards

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Looking at it from their point of view, with almost every day that passes, their products become cheaper and cheaper.

 

I bet the developers are paid in Euros (because they're probably all from Europe!) and so they lose a fortune in the conversion.

 

As a 1 time purchase, I don't think they're actually that expensive. There are still a lot of programs out there that make you pay each year - but then of course there are a lot that don't make you pay at all.

 

It also comes down to how much competition they (think they) have within their respective markets.

[Pain_Man]

Thx.

 

That's always been one of the biggest items on my ImgBurn wish list so I'm glad to hear it.

 

I use CloneCD almost exclusively for ripping/cloning cds (all perfectly legal under US law). But it's a rather...limited program with limited features. It's activity log, in particular, is bare bones to the point of anorexia.

 

Rather like the red-headed stepchild that no one pays any attention to. It went TEN months between updates. Obviously not a priority in Antigua.

 

hi PM,

imgburn will include cd's on the next release if thats of any use to you

[Pain_Man]

Looking at it from their point of view, with almost every day that passes, their products become cheaper and cheaper.

 

They can easily maintain their margins by raising prices. I think they should have done that without the mealy mouthed (in my opinion) excuse about the dollar's current woes.

 

When the Euro came out, it cost 1.25 Euros to buy a buck. Currencies are cyclical like most things: they go up they go down. The dollar will go up again.

 

I bet the developers are paid in Euros (because they're probably all from Europe!) and so they lose a fortune in the conversion.

 

Doubtless they aren't American. Unless they don't mind spending sometime in Club Fed playing golf with crooked bankers and lawyers. If not European, then Indian or Taiwanese. I doubt the IT bench in Antigua is that deep. Some country that hasn't enacted some variation of the abortion: the DMCA.

 

One of the reasons I've bought more than one product from them is the fact that they charge only once for the license (you can pay yearly if you want tech support but how many people actually do that?!).

 

Other companies , won't upgrade you, for free, to the next version even if you purchased the previous version just weeks before! So to get the latest and greatest updates to the prog(s), you have to pony up more bucks.

 

Some of these companies cause people to look for keygens, cracks etc by using despicable tactics like that. If you pay for a year of program updates that's what you should get. And NOT some shit about how "Your version is the latest one." When they released the next update!!

 

And I think that's one of the most powerful drivers of the Freeware movement (if it can be called by that overused term): people are tired of constant demands for more money from software firms. Those of us who've worked in the industry know how absurdly expensive software development is. (E.g.: Motorola spent $500,000,000--in today's values that's about ten grand--developing software for their failed satellite phone business.) And probably the majority of new software projects fail at some point in the development process. And that doesn't even count the commercial failures where the prog just failed to catch on.

 

But the progs that are succesful can be killed by greed, always "offers" for "discounts" to buy again the program you just bought a few months back.

 

 

This can even apply to companies (i.e. Apple) totally destroys itself by some of the stupidest management decisions in the history of commerce. If hadn't been for the iPod, Apple would have joined Commodore and other such companies on the ash-heap of corporate history (to paraphrase Trotsky). And the real laugher is that if it hadn't been for Microsoft pumping $300M into Apple, there wouldn't have been any company around to create the iPod.

 

 

Looking at it from their point of view, with almost every day that passes, their products become cheaper and cheaper.

 

I bet the developers are paid in Euros (because they're probably all from Europe!) and so they lose a fortune in the conversion.

 

As a 1 time purchase, I don't think they're actually that expensive. There are still a lot of programs out there that make you pay each year - but then of course there are a lot that don't make you pay at all.

 

It also comes down to how much competition they (think they) have within their respective markets.

[rds_correia]

Quite an interesting rant but you will have to agree that when someone or a company puts a whole lot of time into coding a software they are entitled to ask for money, and if things get nasty they may have to double the price or nothing in order to save their skin.

That's life...

[spinningwheel]

Quite an interesting rant but you will have to agree that when someone or a company puts a whole lot of time into coding a software they are entitled to ask for money, and if things get nasty they may have to double the price or nothing in order to save their skin.

That's life...

 

 

[blutach]

Wonder how many sales they've got in the last 4 days? An 80% price hike shouldn't bother the consumer, should it? For the price of their famed decrypter (A$135), I'll take the risk that some of my DVD collection will go ker-flooey and I'll have to replace them with new DVDs. I reckon I'll still be ahead of the game.

 

Sorry, no decrypter is worth that much IMHO.

 

Regards

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I'll happily pay up to £30 for little software tools like that (and by that I don't mean decrypters, I mean any little tools) if they do their job well.

 

At the moment, 49 euros is about 38 pounds.

[spinningwheel]

At the moment, 49 euros is about 38 pounds.

=$72.33 American=

[blutach]

And if you're into HD (and we will be eventually), add another E30.

 

Regards

[LOCOENG]

An 80% price hike shouldn't bother the consumer, should it?

 

To someone just learning of the product and deciding to buy it today I doubt if they would know that only a few days ago it was much, much cheaper...for those who had half the couple and are now faced with that kind of price hike for the other half might be a bit blu (pun intended) in the face though. I'm just glad I got mine while the gettin was good, of course I haven't used it in over six months as I still prefer the free methods. Waste not want not.

 

It would be interesting to see some sales numbers from the Slysoft camp though, in say, about six months or a year.