Re: Re: Re: City Navigator - How Often Updated?

From: JAC (techguy94-at-mchsi-dot-com_at_)
Date: 07/20/04 

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 16:15:38 -0500

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:39:19 +0100, "Reg" <news@g4ens.fsnet.co.uk>
wrote:

>"JAC" <techguy94-at-mchsi-dot-com@> wrote in message
>news:kl9ef05iltqi5bahdpkdo13g6cml8c88ad@4ax.com...

>> What does how long you've owned it have to do with their development
>> costs to improve the product.
>
>I think that you've missed the point of development costs.
>
>I've been involved with selling and writing PC software since 1978.
>The first version always costs a lot to produce and market, so has a
>high selling price. As the market starts to saturate less new
>customers will pay the higher price, so the first time price drops.
>Later it drops again as the market saturates at that price. And so
>on....
>
>The cost of producing an update should be significantly less that
>producing a new product, so lower prices for new customers is
>reasonable by this time.

I don't agree. The original City Navigator release contained
"Navtech" data in the major 100 markets or so. For the purposes of
this discussion, let's called "Navtech data" the data that Navtech has
themselves verified, tweaked and otherwise massaged using their own
internal processes.

The second release of City Navigator was Navtech combing the original
100 markets with unverified government data to produce a nationwide
solution.

Subsequent releases after that have resulting in more and more markets
having "Navtech" data versus unverified government data.

So, what we are paying for in each new release, is the labor for
Navtech to verify road data to the expectations of their own
processes.

I don't think that fits your model that you describe above.

>However, for an existing customer upgrading, (s)he has already paid an
>initial high price, so the price of an upgrade should reflect the
>lower cost of producing that upgrade, as they have already contributed
>to the initial costs.
>
>An old customer that has bought many upgrades should pay even less for
>each upgrade, because (s)he has contributed much more to the overall
>cost of production and there are by then even more customers to spread
>the production costs.
>
>However with a monopoly like Microsoft, any price can, and will be,
>charged.
>
>Overcharging is one of the main reasons for folk to copy software and
>'give' it to friends. As Microsoft and others overcharge their repeat
>order customers, many concider the high price a rip-off, so as
>Microsoft is cheating them, they concider it is reasonable to cheat on
>Microsoft.

I don't feel any of this has anything to do with the unique situation
of the Navtech data upgrades.

>> It isn't like your current version breaks, requiring you to upgrade.
>
>No it many not break, but it will often be faulty from new. So an
>existing customer should be entitled to a free upgrade to correct
>those faults.

Faults? The road database is a snapshot in time. If it changes after
that, it isn't a fault. It is a change.

Granted, there are raw errors, but they TOLD customers they were
buying unverified government data.

>There was a time when software was upgraded free of any charge, when
>corrections to faults were found. This was before the internet was
>available for 'free' downloaded upgrades and floppy disks had to be
>posted to the customer, or their dealer.
>
>When I've developed software and later my customer or myself
>discovered a fault, I've always corrected the fault at no cost to my
>customer.

You can hardly compare (fairly) bugs in software to changes in a
mapping database.

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