Frans,

This stuff rocks! I just wanted to take second out of my day to tell you that incorporating LLBLGen in my current project has allowed us to meet (or close to it) some ridiculously aggressive time lines. I've been using it for several months now and I would never plan another piece of software, that needs DB persistence, without it.

Now that I've already purchased it a while ago, I can say that you should charge more for it! The value we've received from it ("NO DBA REQUIRED" should be your slogan) is a lot more than a couple hundred bucks...

Anyway, I have a consultant/author working on our project who also 'sees the light' with ORM and LLBLGen. He told be he's going to quote you in his next book. No b.s.

I'd like to post more to this forum but I'm under some tight schedules and never have time to read it all or add my comments.

Before I go I would like to say that MS definitely dropped the ball getting rid of ObjectSpaces. (I think they canceled it, right?) Well if they did, here's what I think transpired over at MS. First, the developers and project managers understood the importance of ORM and to move in that direction, so they added it to .NET 2.0 and built a prototype. Second, it was then sent over to the marketing department to be packaged with everything else and some idiot at MS realized it could potentially hurt SQL Server sales due to it's database platform independence potential. So what did MS leave in it's place? Embedded C# in SQL Server... This is a perfect example of MS doing what's right for MS, not for the developers...

Ahh.. I feel better now.

-Jeff

acradyn wrote:

I can say that you should charge more for it!

Fer chris sake man!!! Be quiet.

acradyn wrote:

This stuff rocks! I just wanted to take second out of my day to tell you that incorporating LLBLGen in my current project has allowed us to meet (or close to it) some ridiculously aggressive time lines. I've been using it for several months now and I would never plan another piece of software, that needs DB persistence, without it.

Thanks! . These kind of feedback alone makes it all worth it

Now that I've already purchased it a while ago, I can say that you should charge more for it! The value we've received from it ("NO DBA REQUIRED" should be your slogan) is a lot more than a couple hundred bucks...

haha . Well, I do think it can be more expensive, but I also do think it needs some more features to really make up the price. Some people find it too expensive, others find it a bargain, it depends on who you're talking to . The market we're in is very new and effectively just the early adopters of O/R mapper technology on .NET in the group of early adopters of .NET form our market. So in this I'd like to stay on the safe side as we now have a huge momentum and a lot of publicity and making it a bit too expensive for these early adopters might cause we'll lose momentum. (however you'll never know, it's very hard to set the right pricing)

Anyway, I have a consultant/author working on our project who also 'sees the light' with ORM and LLBLGen. He told be he's going to quote you in his next book. No b.s.

Cool! It's always a great honour to be mentioned in someone's books. (I know of one at the moment: Coder to developer)

Before I go I would like to say that MS definitely dropped the ball getting rid of ObjectSpaces. (I think they canceled it, right?) Well if they did, here's what I think transpired over at MS. First, the developers and project managers understood the importance of ORM and to move in that direction, so they added it to .NET 2.0 and built a prototype. Second, it was then sent over to the marketing department to be packaged with everything else and some idiot at MS realized it could potentially hurt SQL Server sales due to it's database platform independence potential. So what did MS leave in it's place? Embedded C# in SQL Server... This is a perfect example of MS doing what's right for MS, not for the developers...

Objectspaces is merged with WinFS, and indeed effectively canceled. I really don't understand some forces inside MS sometimes. It's now all SOA SOA SOA... Don Box once said that O/R mapping is the Vietnam of data-access... no wonder they don't like it. .

It think the "No DBA Required" is a bold statement. Dont get me wrong, LLBLGen is great, but when it comes to making databases highly available, DBAs are always required.

ORM has nothing to do with index tuning, database file management, partitioning of data, capacity planning, maintenance planning, scalability requirements, LUN management, or anything of the likes.

Now, I will say that DBAs should rejoice in the fact that they are no longer required to spend 95% of their time coding and maintaining stored procedures and can focus more time on making the DB run faster and more effeciently. IMO, that is definately due to load that LLBLGen takes off of DBAs and that is also worth its weight in gold.

I do have to agree with acradyn. LLBLGen is way, way underpriced. If you look at other tools around you will see they all charge around $ 400.

How to determin pricing?..... See Joel on software for this topic

Devildog74 wrote:

It think the "No DBA Required" is a bold statement. Dont get me wrong, LLBLGen is great, but when it comes to making databases highly available, DBAs are always required.

I agree. DBA's are required for day-to-day management of the database server, as sysadmins are required for day-to-day management of other servers. I do think that DBA's are a bit on an island at the moment: they are made responsible for everything related to data, which means to avoid serious problems for themselves, the DBA needs / wants all control over everything that's done with the data, which is IMHO wrong: a DBA should work together with developers and be more of an advisor on one side and a maintainer on the other side but shouldn't be made responsible for everything related to the data, as the developers are in fact responsible: if the software bugs, the developer is the cause, not the dba (in most cases )

ORM has nothing to do with index tuning, database file management, partitioning of data, capacity planning, maintenance planning, scalability requirements, LUN management, or anything of the likes.

Now, I will say that DBAs should rejoice in the fact that they are no longer required to spend 95% of their time coding and maintaining stored procedures and can focus more time on making the DB run faster and more effeciently. IMO, that is definately due to load that LLBLGen takes off of DBAs and that is also worth its weight in gold.

Exactly . It's however a huge mindshift for a lot of dba's to take a step back and not being the most important person when it comes to doing something with the database as in: the dba writes teh code for you, if he/she is ill or on vacation you've a problem.

wayne wrote:

I do have to agree with acradyn. LLBLGen is way, way underpriced. If you look at other tools around you will see they all charge around $ 400.

Gee, at that price you must sell quite a bit to make a living in a month.

For some large corp's even 1000$ is a small fee, however for a consultant it might not be the same thing . Most of our customers are in the US. Some time ago, the dollar dropped to its lowest point against the euro and we saw that in sales from the US.

LLBLGen Pro is inexpensive, also because it uses a site license, so a team with 10 developers doesn't have to shell out 10*899$ for deklarit or similar . We had some discussions about this to change it, and we'll perhaps do that in the future, but the main point to use a site license is that it is clear to customers. If you have 10 developers in a team, and 2 of them use the LLBLGen Pro designer, do you use 2 or 10 licenses if we would use per-developer licenses? I'd say 2, but you can also argue: 10.

I still think also that because we're inexpensive, we have a larger market, don't forget, this is a very new thing to .NET/windows developers... most of them have never heard of O/R mapping. Also the open source tools get better and better, and the more expensive you get, the more you have to offer to compete against open source tools even though they're less mature and probably not well maintained.

How to determin pricing?..... See Joel on software for this topic

I also once read an article by Eric Sink about pricing. It's fuzzy math, really. If we make it 399EUR, will we lose sales? Probably not that much. But do we increase the sales (quantity) MORE? Probably not as well. With this new market and still in the early adopters phase, I think the quantity of licenses sold is more important than the $ you get every month (and we're in the black since day 1 so I think it's a good strategy ).

What i really liked about this article was "segmentation" we see this everywhere. And i am sure you can do this aswell.

For example: LLBLGen Standard version for against 1 database type = $200 LLBLGen Pro version for multiple database support = $400 LLBLGen Ent version for multiple database support + template editor = $500

Your amount of new sales will dry up after a while (after every one is using LLBLGen), maybe not now but in a year or two - so you need to think about some type of recuring income.

wayne wrote:

What i really liked about this article was "segmentation" we see this everywhere. And i am sure you can do this aswell.

For example: LLBLGen Standard version for against 1 database type = $200 LLBLGen Pro version for multiple database support = $400 LLBLGen Ent version for multiple database support + template editor = $500

Your amount of new sales will dry up after a while (after every one is using LLBLGen), maybe not now but in a year or two - so you need to think about some type of recuring income.

Well, if I hate one thing in the software business (ok I hate a couple of things, but this is one of them) it's segmentation. It's pure marketing, telling me the company is trying to squeeze as much money out of me without caring for my needs. (that's my interpretation )

Not only has the product have to be crippled for less 'advanced' versions, like a 'standard' edition, which takes extra development time, it also is annoying for the user. Say a user buys the standard edition for 200$. He now has to support oracle as well, so can pay again 200$. After a while he has to do a small access project too. Again 200$? No, he's annoyed and grabs nhibernate. Should he have payed 400$ up front? Perhaps. But why would he do that if he initially just needs 1 db? I know your example is just an example, but it gives me the oppertunity to explain why I don't like that model.

Some competitors offer prices per year, per developer and you have to pay extra for support. A former client of mine (passed away way too early, I could have learned so much from him ) once told me: stand up for the quality you want to deliver. In other words: if you want to deliver quality A, and you don't deliver that at a given time because of a bug or hard to use feature, you have to fix that as you don't meet your standard quality A. So I don't see how support for example can be de-coupled from a license fee. Also a price per year. I don't see the advantages for the user as well, as he has to pay every year for using the goods he used last year. Like you have to pay for the same book every year...

I believe in a new price per new major version. Like 2.0.x.y which will be released later in 2005.

Recurring revenue is an item which is on the agenda of every company, keeping the cashflow going. In software land this is difficult. Unless you do mainframe software, the lifespan of a software program is relatively short: 3, 4 years maybe. After that, it's over, you should move on. I estimate a lifespan for LLBLGen Pro of about 4 years, so in 2007 it will be relatively old in the current form. But this also depends on what alternatives there will be released of course. As we have a large customer base, and lots of publicity, competitors of course look at what we'll do, and why we have success. If alternatives will be relatively less appealing, it will be a great journey till 2007 .

But I estimate before 2007 I have to have a new application ready. Be it LLBLGen Pro 3.0 (probably) or something building on top of the framework, it depends. I thought AOP would take off but it is so unknown that I'll wait for a little while, but my feeling is that AOP in combination with data-access is the next big thing for our market.

It seems that there are Pro's and Con's for segmenting.

The pro is that if LLBLGen was using segmenting and i was a poor consultant then i could buy only the version that i need instead of feeling forced to buy the full version.

The con is as you explained:

Not only has the product have to be crippled for less 'advanced' versions, like a 'standard' edition, which takes extra development time, it also is annoying for the user. Say a user buys the standard edition for 200$. He now has to support oracle as well, so can pay again 200$. After a while he has to do a small access project too. Again 200$? No, he's annoyed and grabs nhibernate. Should he have payed 400$ up front?

So segmenting can be argued both ways

Another pricing structure that might work better is:

Buy LLBLGen Pro designer for $150 For every Database driver needed you pay $50

This way you are not really cripling the system. But giving the users the choice and the value by selling them the source aswell and you keep the functionality the same for all. Maybe you can charge a little bit more for oracle (as we know those guys have the money)

wayne wrote:

It seems that there are Pro's and Con's for segmenting.

The pro is that if LLBLGen was using segmenting and i was a poor consultant then i could buy only the version that i need instead of feeling forced to buy the full version.

True, but then again, you also pay the full version for vs.net, although you might never need design time dataset stuff . I also don't really understand the poor consultant metaphore . I mean: a consultant by definition provides a service for money, and on average that money isn't 5$ an hour . So a poor consultant is likely a dumb consultant, as a smart consultant would simply add it to the price he charges his customer, and he can do that because he saves a lot of time using a 3rd party tool so the customer pays less anyway.

Another pricing structure that might work better is:

Buy LLBLGen Pro designer for $150 For every Database driver needed you pay $50

This way you are not really cripling the system. But giving the users the choice and the value by selling them the source aswell and you keep the functionality the same for all. Maybe you can charge a little bit more for oracle (as we know those guys have the money)

Heh . The idea is nice, though it still requires maintenance of all the accounts who has bought what, i.e.: a far more sophisticated website than we now have. It's worth the tought though... I'll add it to the options we have for the next version.

I HATE segmentation. I bought a laptop with Windows XP Home preinstalled. No IIS! My workstation has IIS. Only one website!! I curse Microsoft every day for this nonsense.

[edit] I mean, my workstation has XP Pro

My workstation has IIS. Only one website!!

Here you go http://www.firstserved.net/services/iisadmin.php This allows you to have as many websites on your XP Pro as you like - but only one can be active at any point.

I think segmentation is a good idea because it allows be to buy according to my need.

Segmentation allows you to determine where to spend your development resources. If 5 people buy the Access driver, then all the time you spend on it really could of been spent on the driver/features that 95% of the users want or need.

You can get this information in other ways such as polls, but putting your money where your mouth is a different thing. Lets face it if its free, nobody says 'no', but every diversion that hits a low percentage of the users, just prolongs the next big item on the list.

John

jtgooding wrote:

Segmentation allows you to determine where to spend your development resources. If 5 people buy the Access driver, then all the time you spend on it really could of been spent on the driver/features that 95% of the users want or need.

You can get this information in other ways such as polls, but putting your money where your mouth is a different thing. Lets face it if its free, nobody says 'no', but every diversion that hits a low percentage of the users, just prolongs the next big item on the list.

Isn't that a bit of a chicken-egg problem? I mean: you first have to write the driver, which takes time, and if not a lot use it, you still have to support it for these users (IMHO). So the investment is already made (to write the driver) and because you've already made the investment, you can't just drop it (at least, that's how I see the matter).

It's also hard to really give a feature a value. If a feature is used by just a couple of users, however these users have often visited blogs or write articles in magazines, it might be well worth the time, and also the feature might be a nice addition to the feature set in general to attrackt new customers

But I understand your point in general and that's also what I do and have done in the past year or so already. For example I stopped adding drivers (wider featureset) in favor of more features to the actual application and framework (deeper featureset).

I think the best option is when software is really, really cheap and includes all of its features by default. Oh, yea! That's what LLBLGen Pro is like!

It's hard to imagine you changing your pricing structure, Frans. It's been so successful, adoption is massive, and there's still a very, very large market for it. Until the market is saturated, which may not happen for a very, very long time, I say stick with it.

You provide a near perfect value proposition for people. It's cheap; it does close to 100% of what I need; it's extremely stable; support is lightning quick, and I don't even have to maintain a support contract for a product I already paid for. You can bet I recommend it everyone I meet, and I've already gotten at least one other consultant to buy it.

There's nothing I can say that would discourage a consultant from buying it. "Well, it's sort of expensive". Nope. "Well, it's kind of buggy". Nope. "Well, it's kind of hard to learn". Nope. "You're going to save a ton of time not writing data access code". Yep. "You'll never have to write another SQLParameter again". Yep. What's not to like?

As long as you're operating in the black and you're happy with the revenue stream, I say don't fix what ain't boke. Yes, you're going to have to come out with new releases. Yes, you're going to have come up with a feature set that convinces developers that they need to upgrade. Yes, you may even need to consider slowing down adding features to the current version, and putting them in a new one. Maybe you should come out with a product that targets a different need, but builds on what you've got (cough cough GUI Framework). But these are things you want to do anyway, right?

Don't change the formula. The market knows a good thing. Build it and they will come.

Jeff...

wayne wrote:

My workstation has IIS. Only one website!!

Here you go http://www.firstserved.net/services/iisadmin.php This allows you to have as many websites on your XP Pro as you like - but only one can be active at any point.

I think segmentation is a good idea because it allows be to buy according to my need.

Thanks for the link. Also that joelonsoftware site was damned interesting.

jeffreygg wrote:

I think the best option is when software is really, really cheap and includes all of its features by default. Oh, yea! That's what LLBLGen Pro is like!

It's hard to imagine you changing your pricing structure, Frans. It's been so successful, adoption is massive, and there's still a very, very large market for it. Until the market is saturated, which may not happen for a very, very long time, I say stick with it.

You provide a near perfect value proposition for people. It's cheap; it does close to 100% of what I need; it's extremely stable; support is lightning quick, and I don't even have to maintain a support contract for a product I already paid for. You can bet I recommend it everyone I meet, and I've already gotten at least one other consultant to buy it.

. Great feedback, Jeff!

Frankly, the way you express it is the way how I want customers to feel about our product.

As long as you're operating in the black and you're happy with the revenue stream, I say don't fix what ain't boke. Yes, you're going to have to come out with new releases. Yes, you're going to have come up with a feature set that convinces developers that they need to upgrade. Yes, you may even need to consider slowing down adding features to the current version, and putting them in a new one. Maybe you should come out with a product that targets a different need, but builds on what you've got (cough cough GUI Framework). But these are things you want to do anyway, right?

Correct . I must say the main reason I am still adding features to the current version is because I don't find it complete yet, it has some things I want to get fixed before I move on to v2.0: developers have to be able to add own code to the generated code easily in various ways, rules have to be definable for entity types, inheritance and CF support. (and a truckload of other things of course). That way I can move on with v2.0 which picks up that functionality but uses the .NET 2.0 framework and a rewrite of the runtime code to bring down the amount of code generated, include new features of .NET 2.0 etc.

Correct . I must say the main reason I am still adding features to the current version is because I don't find it complete yet, it has some things I want to get fixed before I move on to v2.0: developers have to be able to add own code to the generated code easily in various ways, rules have to be definable for entity types, inheritance and CF support. (and a truckload of other things of course). That way I can move on with v2.0 which picks up that functionality but uses the .NET 2.0 framework and a rewrite of the runtime code to bring down the amount of code generated, include new features of .NET 2.0 etc.

You know, I'll upgrade to the next version almost purely out of loyalty to Solutions Design and because I want to support such a great company and product. I know it's weird that a customer would say this, but I wonder if some of those features should be saved for the next major version.

Honestly, you could stop right now and you would have a full-featured product. When I recommend LLBLGen Pro to people, I never say, "You know, it's great and all, but it's just missing some key features". Everything from here on out is value-add and I just wonder if those are the sort of things that should be used as an incentive to upgrade to a new release. People attach value to things not because they're valuable necessarily, but because they were forced to give up something of value to get it; in this case, money.

There's nothing funner to me than seeing a new version of a product I like coming out that has just the features I want - not the features I need, because then I'm pissed that I'm forced to upgrade just to have a complete product, but the features I want. Then I say, "They knew what I wanted and they delivered". I'm happy to pay for it. I fear that you'll lose some product value to people if you're not careful about what you put in the current product versus what you save for a "brand new version".

Things like CF support. Yes, I've been asking for that since release, but only because I knew you wanted to meet my needs. Yes, I was taking advantage of you. But, honestly, I would pay for such an ancillary need if it was provided in the form of an upgrade. It's insane to expect to get a brand new feature like that included in an already-released product. Incredible value on your part, but insane. I don't want to ruin your formula, but on the other hand I would like you to have a nice solid revenue stream for years to come so you'll keep coming out with great products.

Jeff...

(pause for big-picture thinking...)

Google has a saying, "don't be evil." Perhaps because they've stuck to that philosophy they've attracted a market that includes fanatics because they aren't evil, followers because their products work, and casual users because they sense that something good is going on here. What they don't have is a committed cadre of detractors, like the Anti-Microsoft crowd who will find evil in every Microsoft product, no matter how benign.

Google's base is large because they start from the perspective that everyone isn't someone who will fork over cash every single time they hit google.com. They recognize that a person is a customer at different points throughout their lifetime, but a person always. Please the person and the customer will follow, because they are one and the same.

A customer is a person from whom you didn't make money the first 10 times, but will once. People are much more common that customers. Following the math (this could be much better fleshed out,) if you please people first instead of customers first you'll end up with more customers in the long run.

Such is the case with Solutions Design (Solution Designs? Solution Design? Whatever.) Frans (Otis? Whatever.) is working from a model that says that people come first, and it's attracting more customers.

SD's pricing is clearly people-oriented, not customer-oriented. Same with customer service. It's attracting fanatics, followers, and casual users (though not in the same volume of Google. Sorry.) There are no detractors to my knowledge regarding the product itself, though there are people who are religious in their thinking about the implementation of ORM. These people can't be converted, but I notice are being treated with respect by SD. The high priests of stored procedures are people, too.

I've never recommended a product to a 'customer.' But I've recommended (and scorned) many products to other 'people.'

SD's pricing model isn't based on segmentation, or flat-rates, it's people-friendly and non-evil. It's clear from Frans' statements that he's concerned about what people think and feel, and that's reflected in product support, new features, and, yes, product pricing.

That means he'll make much more money in the long run.

And where do I disagree with Frans, you might ask? Covered in many other threads on this board (notice, my 'joined on' date is only one day after Otis himself...), I think the product should be used to expand the market (I call it 'growing the pond,' a reference to being a big fish in a small pond rather than a little fish in a big pond. Be the big player in a small market, then grow the cr*p out of the market, you'll be unstoppable...) by making the product signficantly easier to use through wizards, improved help, redesigned screens, etc. In addition, I worry that the current level of support is unsustainable in the long run, but I've received assurance on more than one occasion that I am wrong, and that as the product grows support personnel will be added. I agree that this is possible.

The above is a rambling mess, but is well articulated in previous threads, easily accessible via the 'search' link, so let it go.

Personally, I wish Frans' would incorporate himself and trade publicly. I'd buy his left arm, and perhaps a toe.

swallace wrote:

Personally, I wish Frans' would incorporate himself and trade publicly. I'd buy his left arm, and perhaps a toe.

I'll got dibs on his brain.

I must say, thank you very much for the kind words, all!

jeffreygg wrote:

You know, I'll upgrade to the next version almost purely out of loyalty to Solutions Design and because I want to support such a great company and product. I know it's weird that a customer would say this, but I wonder if some of those features should be saved for the next major version.

You made some good points, and I think they're all valid. Let me add some perspective though why I do think new features still have to be added to the current version: not every customer is the same and uses the application in the same way. This means that one customer will never run into some issue and another customer almost daily. One of the biggest issues at the moment is stored procedures in very large projects. Creating these projects is undoable almost. I've fixed this with a better setup I think. Also (and I needed this myself ) is multi catalog (sqlserver) / schema (oracle) support. Another thing is adding own logic to the generated code. A lot of potential customers run into this issue: Where to put some simple property I want to add?

There is of course also always the pressure of competition, although I think the landscape is pretty set at the moment: DeKlarit, us, rest. With the april/may release I'll try to pass DeKlarit in developer features like rules, which should be possible.

This can of course be added to a 'new' product. My father is a retired accountant, he nags me almost every week why I don't create more product versions so revenue might go up even higher. Perhaps I'm not tough enough, I don't know, but I always say: if a customer moves away to the competition because of a lack of a given feature, that's too bad but acceptable, however if a customer moves away to the competition because he feels left in the cold due to 'money first, customer second', I can only blame myself.

There's nothing funner to me than seeing a new version of a product I like coming out that has just the features I want - not the features I need, because then I'm pissed that I'm forced to upgrade just to have a complete product, but the features I want. Then I say, "They knew what I wanted and they delivered". I'm happy to pay for it. I fear that you'll lose some product value to people if you're not careful about what you put in the current product versus what you save for a "brand new version".

I really liked this part. And you're absolutely right about that last remark. But that's always a gamble: one feature is required for customer a and useless for customer b.

Scott: I think your analysis in your first posting hits the nail on the head

Now just some random comments on your second posting:

swallace wrote:

And where do I disagree with Frans, you might ask? Covered in many other threads on this board (notice, my 'joined on' date is only one day after Otis himself...), I think the product should be used to expand the market (I call it 'growing the pond,' a reference to being a big fish in a small pond rather than a little fish in a big pond. Be the big player in a small market, then grow the cr*p out of the market, you'll be unstoppable...) by making the product signficantly easier to use through wizards, improved help, redesigned screens, etc. In addition, I worry that the current level of support is unsustainable in the long run, but I've received assurance on more than one occasion that I am wrong, and that as the product grows support personnel will be added. I agree that this is possible.

The problem with our market is that it shifts from left to right, because the target audience is in doubt: what to do? What does MS do?... Since MS dropped Objectspaces, the market is more and more stabelized but it also became clear that a pure O/R mapper is a tough niche product with Open source eating away all the market there is. Also, because O/R mappers are such a tough sell to MS developers, the effort of a lot of people to expand the O/R market in the last 2 years has resulted in very few responses: the market isn't growing fast, but keeping steady and IMHO it shrinks even, because MS pulled out of it. That's also why we try to position the product a bit differently, not as a pure O/R mapper, but more as The data-access solution which saves you a lot of time.

The amount of support request is somewhat stable, although the number of customers increases every month. I think this is a good sign, it shows that as soon as customers start using it, the number of support requests they need drops to almost 0. But when the early adopters phase is over, and it really takes off, we need extra support personell. But that's not a problem, as more sales pay automatically for the new personell .

Btw, it's SolutionS Design.

Personally, I wish Frans' would incorporate himself and trade publicly. I'd buy his left arm, and perhaps a toe.

Fishy wrote:

swallace wrote:

Personally, I wish Frans' would incorporate himself and trade publicly. I'd buy his left arm, and perhaps a toe.

I'll got dibs on his brain.

Freaks

Otis wrote:

The problem with our market is that it shifts from left to right, because the target audience is in doubt: what to do? What does MS do?... Since MS dropped Objectspaces, the market is more and more stabelized but it also became clear that a pure O/R mapper is a tough niche product with Open source eating away all the market there is. Also, because O/R mappers are such a tough sell to MS developers, the effort of a lot of people to expand the O/R market in the last 2 years has resulted in very few responses: the market isn't growing fast, but keeping steady and IMHO it shrinks even, because MS pulled out of it. That's also why we try to position the product a bit differently, not as a pure O/R mapper, but more as The data-access solution which saves you a lot of time.

Reading this helps me understand the price point you've set for LLBLGen Pro. If the main competitors to your product are free, and they provide a certain amount of value, it's hard to ask for a substantial amount of money in return for a hard to justify increased level of value. Gotta keep it cheap to compete with that which is free.

You know, the other thought I had was that my points about holding features over for new versions only makes sense in a saturated, or nearly saturated market. If the rate of growth is holding steady or increasing, and there's still a large market to be obtained, then it makes sense to get the most out of the existing investment, ie, the current version. Why build a new version when you can just add a feature to the existing version, still gain additional customers AND make your existing customers even more happy. That makes sense. You won't get any additional money from your existing customers, but you will steadily gain customers for the first version, which means even there will be even more potential revenue when you do decide to offer a new release as you now have a larger installed base from which to attract upgrade customers.

Jeff...