How Manifold does to stay cheap
Here are some conclusions I have reached regarding the strategy used by manifold to stay at a cheap price, not to say ridiculous regarding its potential. The truth is that the technology business
They do not give printed manual, the manual is digital ... they argue that because of the changing world of technology, making a beautiful manual in print is a risk and they consider that they do not want to risk $ 50 that the manual could add to the final price. Their digital manual almost solves what they are dealing with, they have an online manual and now… if someone wants, they can print the 3,400 pages of the digital manual.
They do not give a box, When you buy online, what they send you is a link to download the product and they send you the license activation keys. They argue that sending a box, with the discs inside, and shipping could easily mean $ 45 already with the shipping cost, and they consider that today's geek world can avoid it ... ah, if you want a DVD, with its packaging and disc original costs $ 11 plus shipping costs. It's funny that there is a getting started guide that has three steps: 1 Install, 2. Launch, 3. Learn
They do not have distributors, can only be purchased online. What they give you is a 30-day guarantee that you can get your money back if you are not satisfied with the product. But they do not have resellers worldwide, arguing that this generally increases product costs by 50% due to the reseller's commission and country taxes. This limits training and gives us opportunities that we can support and implement.
They do not have conventional support serviceWhen you buy a license you have the right to two questions to the official support, so you have to take care of them as the wishes of the genius of Aladdin. After this, you pay per question, what exists are user forums to help each other, and blogs like this one that give advice for free :). To date I have my questions intact, from when I bought the license, although it has stung my spine to ask them elementary things such as: What's up with the V8 versions of the dgn and dwg after 2005.
Do not irrigate licenses everywhere, when a new version comes out they promote the migration for $ 50 so that they don't have to be thinking about users who stayed with versions of 3 years ago.
Do not fornicate with anyone, so they don't buy a third-party development if they can do it themselves, they don't marry everyone, IIS does, RedHat doesn't…
Let's add when it could be worth it then if Manifold offered all the miquis:
Minimum Personal Version $ 245.00
Printed manual and user guide $ 55.00
Packaging box, original disc $ 45.00
Reseller Commission $ 400.00
Support service $ 110.00
$ 55.00 old license support service
Local taxes $ 125.00
Customs and shipping costs $ 45.00
Over cost of corporate image $ 370.00
Total ………………………………………… .. $ 1,450.00
By chance, is not that the price of ArcGIS Desktop?
