From: Joel M. Sciamma (joel_at_inventors-emporium.co.uk)
Date: Sun Apr 18 2004 - 13:05:21 PDT
Eric,
> Installed base is what matters, pure and simple.
> You don't sell software to a market share percentage, you sell to an
> installed base.
When 98 of every 100 computers sold are not new potential customers, for
your software or your virus, it makes a difference.
The installed base is also gradually shrinking due to the age of the
equipment and more fragmented, IMO, due to OS X.
Most new releases for Mac OS are OS X only - the economics of developing and
testing for 9 and X simultaneously don't look too good - most shareware
authors have made the switch, quite rightly. FileMaker (Apple) is now OS X
only. Most other core packages are too or shortly will be. Does developing
for 9.x make any commercial sense despite the much larger installed base?
So, the installed base we are addressing for Mac OS is effectively 12M
users, a handy potential market where you can be a bigger fish in a smaller
pond, but growth will be harder to sustain.
If your software is cross-platform, what would you say is the point where
maintaining a team to code/test/support for the minor platform becomes
uneconomic? 10% of total revenue? 5%?
I have a new product that is wholly developed on the Mac (9.x) but hosted by
a cross-platform (9.x/OSX/Win) CAD package. The Mac used to be a real force
in CAD but is being gradually rendered irrelevant - all my customers and
prospective customers use Windows - how much of my limited resources do I
commit to Mac-only features?
If it were 2, or even 5 in every 100 customers, would it be worth it?
A lot of good people committed themselves to coding for the Newt and were
badly hurt by its cancellation. Was their motivation a tiny installed base
or the promise of a serious and growing market share?
Regards,
Joel.
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