comments on the new "treebrowser" for 50G
in [HP48]
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From: JYA on 9 Apr 2008 03:13 On 2008-04-09 03:19:54 +1000, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> said: > Just taking a quick look, the $40/$50 price tag seems a little high, although > not necessarily completely unreasonable. The showstopper for me is that it's > locked to one calculator: One have one 50g at work and one at home, and no way > would I purchase two copies when it's physically impossible for me to be using > both at the same time. > Definitely is on the very expensive side. That's over 40% of the price of a new calculator ... -- They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security (Benjamin Franklin)
From: JYA on 9 Apr 2008 03:15 On 2008-04-09 10:07:25 +1000, bbobble(a)gmx.de said: > So if I need to exchange the calc I send it back with the SD-card to > my dealer and get both exchanged. And what happened when the calculator isn't under warranty anymore ? -- They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security (Benjamin Franklin)
From: Andreas Möller on 9 Apr 2008 06:38 Hello, since there is some discussion about the software I developed it seems to me that I need to clarify some things: > And what happened when the calculator isn't under warranty anymore ? Now first, for sure I am not responsible for the poor build quality (including but not limited to the poor manuals) HP offers to its customers. Who´s fault is it that their current calculators do not last as long as a HP 41, a HP 48SX or a HP 48GX ? Could it be the reason that HP is trying to make as much money of its customer as possible and rather does not care so much about their quality anymore ? What happened to the HP way ? Well, these are the numbers that were published in Germany (the exchange rate is based at the end of November): For the fiscal year 2007 (01.11.2006-31.10.2007) their turnover volume grow by 14% from 62 billion Euros to roughly 70 billion Euros (104,3 billion US-Dollars) making a net profit of roughly 5 billion Euros (7,3 billion US-Dollar) while laying-off 15.000 employees in the last 24 months. 2006 they made a net profit of roughly 4 billion Euros (6,2 billion US-Dollars). For the first quarter of 2008 they published (20.02.2008) a profit growth of 38% from 1,5 billion dollars to 2,1 billion dollars. Secondly, the software comes with a S/N. So there should be no problem in exchanging it if the calculator isn't under warranty anymore. Maybe I should extend my website to a registration form but as you can cleary see I am not a webdesigner ;-) Also updates for the software are provided through this site. > Definitely is on the very expensive side. > That's over 40% of the price of a new calculator ... That is an interesting argument. The list price for a SAP R/3 GUI is usually 12-15 times the price of the hardware it runs on, in a complete roll out the hardware cost gets into the negligible range of the total cost. Maybe I should use this as an argument the next time we are buying a (software) database ... By the way, what did the Meta Kernel cost when it came out ? The TreeBrowser offers unique features for ease of use of the calculator and for creating personalized collection of formulas which are not found on any other comparable machine (TI, Casio, Sharo, etc.). And, of course, you can always drop me a mail if you have questions. Any suggestions are welcome. Greetings, Andreas
From: JYA on 10 Apr 2008 08:12 Hi On 2008-04-09 20:38:50 +1000, Andreas M�ller <andreas_moellerNOSPAM(a)gmx.de> said: > The list price for a SAP R/3 GUI is > usually 12-15 times the price of the hardware it runs on Do you really want to compare SAP with Treebrowser? Entire businesses rely on SAP. That is an interesting argument. The list price for a SAP R/3 GUI is > usually 12-15 times the price of the hardware it runs on, in a > complete roll out the hardware cost gets into the negligible range of > the total cost. Maybe I should use this as an argument the next time > we are buying a (software) database ... > By the way, what did the Meta Kernel cost when it came out ? Interesting point. It was US $50... Now I doubt you want to compare your treebrowser with the Metakernel either. The Metakernel was 128kB in size, was developed by 5 people over 5 years and did quite a lot more than what treebrowser did . In fact your software right now is using some component of our metakernel A more relevant comparison would be with my String Writer. It was shareware, sold for US$10 (you didn't have to pay).Over 2000 people registered for this software and most people gave more than $10 (I even had people giving me US $100, and back then $100 was worth much more than it is today!). And at the time it had features no other software had and without it the command line of the HP48 was pretty much unusable. > > The TreeBrowser offers unique features for ease of use of the > calculator and for creating personalized collection of formulas which > are not found on any other comparable machine (TI, Casio, Sharo, > etc.). I wish you good luck in your venture... But I will not stop saying that you will have little success if the list price is in the US $50-mark. You can do list of formulas using the built-in features so for getting an extra ease of use, $50 is pushing. Jean-Yves
From: Andreas Möller on 10 Apr 2008 09:35
Hello, Thanks for sharing your thoughts. > Entire businesses rely on SAP. Yes, I know. I work with it. Comparing the software was not the point that I was making. The point is that there is not necessarily a correlation between the price of a piece of hardware and the price of a piece of software. And for that I gave an example. > I wish you good luck in your venture... Thank you. > But I will not stop saying that you will have little success if the > list price is in the US $50-mark. > You can do list of formulas using the built-in features so for getting > an extra ease of use, $50 is pushing. For sure I am not pushing anybody. Yes, you can do lists with the built-in features. But you can not present them the way it is done with TreeBrowser. And discussing about an extra ease of use would be very interesting but is IMHO a completly different story. And, of course, every price depends on the law of supply and demand. So, I value your opinion and your comparison but I do not share it. Let´s see what the future will bring and the future is hopefully always bright. Greetings, Andreas |