Jeff7181
Lifer
A thread in another forum sparked this idea...
There's few pieces of software that stress a modern computer. Only things like video editing, photo editing, and games need all the processing power that's available today. Other things like MS Word, Excel, Quicken, Money, etc. can run just fine on everything that's out there today, and most of yesterday's hardware. Even the latest versions of all those are pointless, because they include a lot of features you'll never use. How many home users even use Excel at all? How many do mail merging in MS Word? Not many.
But, if we want to type a letter, and have it checked for grammar and spelling, we need something like MS Word, because Wordpad and Notepad just don't cut it for a professional document. MS Word is extremely expensive for what the average home user uses it for, yet as I said, there isn't another smaller program that's capable.
My solution to this is for companies to start selling Internet/Web Based Applications. For example, Microsoft Word Anywhere. You go to the website and have a choice, you can order the full version of MS Word and download it, or have it mailed to you... or you can buy access to a light versin of MS Word, without all the business type features, but still have the ability to insert pictures, format the letter, and have good spelling and grammar checking. The full version of Word sells for over $200 on MS's web site. So maybe make it $50 for the light version online. Or, have the option to have a 1 month pass, or a 1 week pass or a subscription of some kinda... like, you can buy online access for $50, or, you can pay like $10 per month, and then when a new version comes out, it's instantly available to you, whereas if you bought the access to the specific program, you'd have to pay like $25 to upgrade or something like that.
There's been pleanty of times when I would have liked to be able to use a certain program just once, but didn't want to go out and buy the program just for one use. Photoshop for example... I'd be a lot more likely to spend $15 for 1 month of online access to that program, than to go buy it for $300.
Or how about a subscription service for music... maybe pay $50 per month for a certain number MP3's per month. Or buy individual albums for like $5... or individual songs for $1.
With broadband becoming more available and affordable, and piracy becoming more common, I think Internet Based Applications are a good solution. Sure, people who pirate software won't like the idea of the software being run in a web browser from the company's server, and sure, the software company probably won't sell as many retail copies... but if you provide people with the convenience of being able to use any piece of software for a limited amount of time for a smaller fee than buying the software outright, I think they'd end up making more money. Even offer discounts for return customers... say you used MS Word Anywhere for a month, then cancelled your subscription, then a few months later you need it again, so you sign back up for half the price of a new subscription.
What do you all think of this idea? Would you find something like that useful? Would you mind paying a very reduced price for the use of software for a limited period of time?
There's few pieces of software that stress a modern computer. Only things like video editing, photo editing, and games need all the processing power that's available today. Other things like MS Word, Excel, Quicken, Money, etc. can run just fine on everything that's out there today, and most of yesterday's hardware. Even the latest versions of all those are pointless, because they include a lot of features you'll never use. How many home users even use Excel at all? How many do mail merging in MS Word? Not many.
But, if we want to type a letter, and have it checked for grammar and spelling, we need something like MS Word, because Wordpad and Notepad just don't cut it for a professional document. MS Word is extremely expensive for what the average home user uses it for, yet as I said, there isn't another smaller program that's capable.
My solution to this is for companies to start selling Internet/Web Based Applications. For example, Microsoft Word Anywhere. You go to the website and have a choice, you can order the full version of MS Word and download it, or have it mailed to you... or you can buy access to a light versin of MS Word, without all the business type features, but still have the ability to insert pictures, format the letter, and have good spelling and grammar checking. The full version of Word sells for over $200 on MS's web site. So maybe make it $50 for the light version online. Or, have the option to have a 1 month pass, or a 1 week pass or a subscription of some kinda... like, you can buy online access for $50, or, you can pay like $10 per month, and then when a new version comes out, it's instantly available to you, whereas if you bought the access to the specific program, you'd have to pay like $25 to upgrade or something like that.
There's been pleanty of times when I would have liked to be able to use a certain program just once, but didn't want to go out and buy the program just for one use. Photoshop for example... I'd be a lot more likely to spend $15 for 1 month of online access to that program, than to go buy it for $300.
Or how about a subscription service for music... maybe pay $50 per month for a certain number MP3's per month. Or buy individual albums for like $5... or individual songs for $1.
With broadband becoming more available and affordable, and piracy becoming more common, I think Internet Based Applications are a good solution. Sure, people who pirate software won't like the idea of the software being run in a web browser from the company's server, and sure, the software company probably won't sell as many retail copies... but if you provide people with the convenience of being able to use any piece of software for a limited amount of time for a smaller fee than buying the software outright, I think they'd end up making more money. Even offer discounts for return customers... say you used MS Word Anywhere for a month, then cancelled your subscription, then a few months later you need it again, so you sign back up for half the price of a new subscription.
What do you all think of this idea? Would you find something like that useful? Would you mind paying a very reduced price for the use of software for a limited period of time?
