Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Frontier and PIM's

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:3/5/1999; 5:20:01 AM
Topic:Frontier and PIM's
Msg #:3609 (In response to 3606)
Prev/Next:3608 / 3610

Michael, see my comments on the Scripting News home page and thanks for the pointer to the Salon piece.

It's so funny to me to read this. Lotus Agenda was the straw that broke our back, when we were making ThinkTank in the 80s. It's what convinced us to go to the Mac and turn the outliner into presentation software. The press went ga-ga over Agenda, and barely mentioned our product as they said Agenda was the Second Coming (Mitch Kapor said it was better than 1-2-3, and he had godlike status at that time.)

(I thought Agenda was a hack, an amateurish imitation of the elegance of ThinkTank. If Consumer Reports had done tests we would have won hands down, but the software industry press, esp at that time, was far too excited to do a sober evaluation of the category. They wanted another 1-2-3, and Mitch promised that This Is It.)

Another funny thing. The simpler and easier to use the software is, the less money people were willing to pay for it. I'm not sure I understand the psychology, because as an engineer and entrepreneur, I know that a lot of money goes into making something easy to use. The economics were backwards.

Just the other day someone said here that a "light" version of Frontier configured just as an outliner should sell for $99. We could never make a profit at that price. Why should we do it?

Also, a few months ago, on my back porch drinking beer, a friend who also lamented the passing of outliners, encouraged me to get back into the market. I was aloof. Why should I? I asked. How much would you be willing to pay for it? $149 he said. I said forget it. I asked him to try again.

It was an interesting exercise. I asked him to think for a minute. Would it be worth it to him to pay $500 per year for outlining software and upgrades? At first he was outraged. He thought about it, swallowed hard, and said yes. I agreed. I would be willing to pay $500 per year for a great outliner that was being upgraded and enhanced.

I also asked him to explain why all the companies who had produced $49 outliners had gone out of business. Maybe it was a diseconomic price? I pondered. (I know the answer, it is diseconomic.)

How much would it be worth to you to get ten percent more results for your time? The people who use organizers are lawyers, doctors, professors, managers, people who are well-paid for their time. The assumption that the top of this category is $99 is another thing that keeps entrepreneurs out of the market. My beer-drinking friend is an ad guy. If he gets to keep a client because his team is more creative and better organized, is that worth $500 per year per user? If not, he should stick with word processors and spreadsheets as creative organizing tools.

Also, to look to open source providers to fill the gap is ridiculous. Open source has produced operating systems, this is cheap software to create, you can use computer science grad students to write operating systems. Outliners require pixel sweat and a consistent commitment to upgrades (there's no end to features people want in organizing software, the people who use them are very creative, which is great, but it's hard work to keep them happy). But users don't get that. If it's easy to use it must be easy to make. Disconnect! That is why the outlining category is dead right now. Maybe it'll come back to life, but people will have to figure out that if they want it to happen they have to lighten up on the pricing issue and the press has to show some balance and maturity and start challenging the lies the bullies of the industry throw at them.



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