William -
A few points:
o Master Series is NOT 70's code...it was almost totally
rewritten from the ground up in C for MS1, and more recently
large portions are being rewritten in C++ using modern
OO development techniques. Just because SDRC was selling
software in the 70's does not mean that all of their
products are still "70's code". Where do you claim to
get this (incorrect) information???
o Why should the metaphor for an OPERATING SYSTEM be used
inside of an application program, which has its own, completely
different set of problems and requirements than the management
of a computer desktop? True, there are some minor differences
in terms of what "click" versus "shift-click" mean between
Master Series and Windows, but most users probably perceive
those as minor annoyances, not factors that would lead them
to completely reject an otherwise capable package as the
corporate design tool.
o "Bill Gates" windows metaphor is really ripped-off from
"Apple Macintosh" metaphor, which was actually invented decades
ago at Xerox. Give proper credit where credit is due.
Agreed, declining sales for MCAD product is definitely a concern,
but you will need to abandon your simplistic and presumptive
theories and look elsewhere for explanations.
My $0.02: Availability of lower-end products are driving market
to buy them and try them for a while to see of they will work.
While they might have gotten more actual benefit from higher-end
systems (Ideas and PE), they may be squeaking by, and be able
pressure the lower-end MCAD suppliers to make improvements (as
SDRC/PE customers did to them), and keep going at the lower
price point. The job for SDRC marketing/sales is to convince
and demonstrate substantial benefits from the more complete
implementations of the high-end products that will have a
clear bottom-line benefit over the low end, enough to make it
worth the higher price for customers. That's especially hard
to do when someone is only barely convinced MCAD is a good
idea to begin with. The fact that *BOTH* SDRC and PTC's
MCAD sales are way off supports this industry-based analysis,
over the particular strengths and weaknesses of the individual
products.
My guess is that both will be forced to reconfigure their
product/price/market model, and sell their high-end
products for less, or pack more of the high-end functionality
into the low-end products. I've heard rumors that SDRC may be
doing this with the next release of their Artisan, which runs
(quite well I've heard) on Windoze NT. |
