[ADD] InfoTipsControl at last finished up...

[Thomas Hansen]

InfoTipsControl is a Google Suggest inspired WebControl, meaning it
will do server-side lookups to populate a text box with
"intellisense"...
A sample application can be found here:
http://www.frostinnovation.com/InfoTipsSample1/
(Type e.g. "a" in any of the TextBoxes)

This actually goes server-side for every change inside the textbox with
the contents of the textbox and creates a DIV run time which will be
displayed and have support for navigation through using the arrow keys
etc...
Works in FireFox and IE.
Does client-side caching of "queries seen before"

The website for the control can be found here:
http://www.frostinnovation.com/Default.aspx?tabid=72

The control is a commercial product, but anyone can download a trial
(no registration required) which will work out of the box but display a
"Trial Info" text inside it when appearing...

Please support a small independent start-up if you wish to use it in
your applications...
If your business is a school or in any other way a business which can
appeal to my conscience (voluntary work, Open Source Initiative etc) we
can probably supply a "free version" of the WebControl.


Regards,
Thomas Hansen

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Thomas,

It looks great and works good but,
isn't that too expensive for a control which does so little ?

Whole, quite complex, applications sell for much less than $500.

Did you do any market research on the price for your product ?

Also, the next time, please don't use this newsgroup for announcing
commercial products or you'll risk being considered a spammer.

I see you posted it in the ann group.
It's fine to post product announcements there.

Thanks!

 

[Thomas Hansen]

Thomas,

It looks great and works good but,
isn't that too expensive for a control which does so little ?

I guess it depends on what you compare it to...
I have spent more then a month of development on it, the javascript
file alone is 471 lines long!
So there's roughly 1500 lines of code in total in it.
So as you can see it's quite a bit of work spent on it.
In addition I don't expect too many being interested in it, if I get 10
licenses sold in 2006 I would be very happy, meaning 5000$ in total
revenue for it in 2006 for a months work in 2005.
In addition I assume I'll spend another month in total supporting it
and helping people out who wants to implement it (though I've tried to
make it as easy as possible) plus fixing bugs.
In addition if you were to develop one from scratch (which not very
many people who would want to have it would be able to do) a good
developer would probably spend more then a month, so as you can see one
good/experienced developer (in the Western world that is) would cost at
least 10 times 500$ before having the same results as the out of the
box version from us gives you.

Whole, quite complex, applications sell for much less than $500.

Did you do any market research on the price for your product ?

I know other WebControls often sells for roughly 200$, this makes
InfoTipsControl prize a bit steep, but other companies developing
WebControls sells maybe 100s or 1000s of copies of their controls, I
don't expect InfoTipsControl to sell more then maybe 10 copies in
2006...
This is less then 50% of the total costs I had developing it!!
So as you can see I don't expect to get payd for more then half of my
actually expenses...
I am however using it myself in my own projects, so I guess you can say
I don't "deserve" to get more then half payd...

Also, the next time, please don't use this newsgroup for announcing
commercial products or you'll risk being considered a spammer.

I see you posted it in the ann group.
It's fine to post product announcements there.

Sorry for posting adds in this group, I did though in addition to
wanting to sell it also get comments on it (which probably wasn't clear
enough)
Also I did prefix my post with an [ADD] to difference it from "normal"
posts, why this didn't appear in my final post I am not sure of...
I know it was there when I made the post... (google groups bug I assume


Anyway, thanx for the comments about it
I appreciate constructive critisism!!

Thomas

 

[Mr Newbie]

I thought it was pretty cool. This cost is only one days developer cost, so
I think the price is fine.

Best Regards

The Inimitable Mr Newbie º¿º

Thomas,

It looks great and works good but,
isn't that too expensive for a control which does so little ?

I guess it depends on what you compare it to...
I have spent more then a month of development on it, the javascript
file alone is 471 lines long!
So there's roughly 1500 lines of code in total in it.
So as you can see it's quite a bit of work spent on it.
In addition I don't expect too many being interested in it, if I get 10
licenses sold in 2006 I would be very happy, meaning 5000$ in total
revenue for it in 2006 for a months work in 2005.
In addition I assume I'll spend another month in total supporting it
and helping people out who wants to implement it (though I've tried to
make it as easy as possible) plus fixing bugs.
In addition if you were to develop one from scratch (which not very
many people who would want to have it would be able to do) a good
developer would probably spend more then a month, so as you can see one
good/experienced developer (in the Western world that is) would cost at
least 10 times 500$ before having the same results as the out of the
box version from us gives you.

Whole, quite complex, applications sell for much less than $500.

Did you do any market research on the price for your product ?

I know other WebControls often sells for roughly 200$, this makes
InfoTipsControl prize a bit steep, but other companies developing
WebControls sells maybe 100s or 1000s of copies of their controls, I
don't expect InfoTipsControl to sell more then maybe 10 copies in
2006...
This is less then 50% of the total costs I had developing it!!
So as you can see I don't expect to get payd for more then half of my
actually expenses...
I am however using it myself in my own projects, so I guess you can say
I don't "deserve" to get more then half payd...

Also, the next time, please don't use this newsgroup for announcing
commercial products or you'll risk being considered a spammer.

I see you posted it in the ann group.
It's fine to post product announcements there.

Sorry for posting adds in this group, I did though in addition to
wanting to sell it also get comments on it (which probably wasn't clear
enough)
Also I did prefix my post with an [ADD] to difference it from "normal"
posts, why this didn't appear in my final post I am not sure of...
I know it was there when I made the post... (google groups bug I assume


Anyway, thanx for the comments about it
I appreciate constructive critisism!!

Thomas

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:

In addition I don't expect too many being interested in it, if I get
10 licenses sold in 2006 I would be very happy, meaning $5000
in total revenue for it in 2006 for a months work in 2005.

Compare these :

10 licenses at $500 = $ 5,000
20 licenses at $250 = $ 5,000
50 licenses at $100 = $ 5,000
200 licenses at $50 = $10,000
500 licenses at $20 = $10,000
1000 licenses at $20 = $20,000

The market for your app widens as your price is lower and,
the more users your product has, the more money you'll make.

Many small-site developers will spend $20 for a license for
a component without thinking about it, just to check it out.

Spending $500 takes some thought.

It makes a lot of sense to price a component as low as you can.

If you don't sell enough licenses to make money at the lower price,
you'll have a very hard time selling enough licenses to make money at the higher price.

re:

Also I did prefix my post with an [ADD]

Maybe if you had prefixed it with [ANN},
it wouldn't have been so obviously wrong.

[ADD] means nothing. [ANN] means announcement.

Notice that your original announcement has already been
deleted by the powers that be that rule this newsgroup.

Note : I had nothing to do with that. I only offered advice.

One last piece of advice, get rid of this "feature" :

"If you want to order a license we need to have
the MachineName of the server it's going to run at".

That will turn off many potential clients.

I'll be d*mned if I'm going to run a component which
requires my giving up my server's machinename.

Find another way to secure your licenses.

But, don't take my word for what I'm saying.
Consult with others, and see what they think.

I'd want for you to be very successful.

Unfortunately, your own policies seem to preclude your becoming successful.
I hope I'm wrong and that you become successful in spite of that.

Thomas,

It looks great and works good but,
isn't that too expensive for a control which does so little ?

I guess it depends on what you compare it to...
I have spent more then a month of development on it, the javascript
file alone is 471 lines long!
So there's roughly 1500 lines of code in total in it.
So as you can see it's quite a bit of work spent on it.
In addition I don't expect too many being interested in it, if I get 10
licenses sold in 2006 I would be very happy, meaning 5000$ in total
revenue for it in 2006 for a months work in 2005.
In addition I assume I'll spend another month in total supporting it
and helping people out who wants to implement it (though I've tried to
make it as easy as possible) plus fixing bugs.
In addition if you were to develop one from scratch (which not very
many people who would want to have it would be able to do) a good
developer would probably spend more then a month, so as you can see one
good/experienced developer (in the Western world that is) would cost at
least 10 times 500$ before having the same results as the out of the
box version from us gives you.

Whole, quite complex, applications sell for much less than $500.

Did you do any market research on the price for your product ?

I know other WebControls often sells for roughly 200$, this makes
InfoTipsControl prize a bit steep, but other companies developing
WebControls sells maybe 100s or 1000s of copies of their controls, I
don't expect InfoTipsControl to sell more then maybe 10 copies in
2006...
This is less then 50% of the total costs I had developing it!!
So as you can see I don't expect to get payd for more then half of my
actually expenses...
I am however using it myself in my own projects, so I guess you can say
I don't "deserve" to get more then half payd...

Also, the next time, please don't use this newsgroup for announcing
commercial products or you'll risk being considered a spammer.

I see you posted it in the ann group.
It's fine to post product announcements there.

Sorry for posting adds in this group, I did though in addition to
wanting to sell it also get comments on it (which probably wasn't clear
enough)
Also I did prefix my post with an [ADD] to difference it from "normal"
posts, why this didn't appear in my final post I am not sure of...
I know it was there when I made the post... (google groups bug I assume


Anyway, thanx for the comments about it
I appreciate constructive critisism!!

Thomas

 

[Thomas Hansen]

Juan T. Llibre wrote:
[snip]

Find another way to secure your licenses.

Lots of interesting thoughts!
Regarding why I've chosen the MachineName is because it's easy to
figure out for users which wants to obtain a license...
If I were to use the MAC address or something, newbie developers would
have a hard time figuring it out while the MachineName is just to
rightclick on the My Computer icon and see!


Though many OTHERS use "Run Home And Tell" technology which is at least
100 times worse and more compromising!
InfoTipsControl does not contain ANY such technologies.
It doesn't push any data up to any other site then the one you request
itself to do through either the WebServiceEndPoint or the
ConnectionString/SQLSelectQuery property...
It also does not clutter your registry or any other ways compromises
your system!
The only thing it does (apart from the default .MSI VS Project stuff)
is add up _ONE_ registry key underneath
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/.NetFramework/AssemblyFolders.
And that is only to show it in the "Add Reference..." dialog.
If I were to use alternative "secure license" technologes it would
either be very hard to figure out what data to send to me to generate a
license or compromising the system where it was installed...


Thomas

 

[Thomas Hansen]

re:

Compare these :

10 licenses at $500 = $ 5,000
20 licenses at $250 = $ 5,000
50 licenses at $100 = $ 5,000
200 licenses at $50 = $10,000
500 licenses at $20 = $10,000
1000 licenses at $20 = $20,000

The market for your app widens as your price is lower and,
the more users your product has, the more money you'll make.

Many small-site developers will spend $20 for a license for
a component without thinking about it, just to check it out.

Spending $500 takes some thought.

It makes a lot of sense to price a component as low as you can.

If you don't sell enough licenses to make money at the lower price,
you'll have a very hard time selling enough licenses to make money at the higher price.

I haven't actually changed the prize or anything, but I have added up
some "criterias" which if fullfilled will make you fall into the
category where we can discuss the prize of the control, maybe even make
it a fraction of what it originally is and even possibly 100% FREE.
Read up at:
http://www.frostinnovation.com/Default.aspx?tabid=72

Basically what I say no is that:

And if you've read this far and feel that the prize is a bit too steep,
we can be willing to discuss the prize if one or more of the following
criterias have been fullfiled.

* You run a small independant start-up with not alot of money
* You run a single man/woman consultant company with no possibillity of
billing your customer for the prize of the control
* You want to buy more then 5 server licenses
* You have told us about a bug in the control which we did not know
about
* You come with a VERY good change request or feature request which we
add up in a later version
* You intent to use the control in a company which is about to go broke

* You intent to use the control in your own personal website
* You manage to appeal to our conscience in any other way

If one or more of the criterias above have been fullfilled we can be
very nice regarding the amount of money we will bill you for your
license!

And the control is GIVEN AWAY for FREE if you fullfill one or more of
the following criterias.

* You intend to use it on a website which does charity work
* You intent to use the control on a site which is a website for an
Open Source project
* You intent to use the control in a school or an institution

So as you can see we have a pretty nice billing policy!
But if you want to have a cheaper prize you need to tell us WHY you
deserve to get the control for less money then all the others would
normally pay for it!

Thomas

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

I wish you a lot of success, Thomas.

re:

Compare these :

10 licenses at $500 = $ 5,000
20 licenses at $250 = $ 5,000
50 licenses at $100 = $ 5,000
200 licenses at $50 = $10,000
500 licenses at $20 = $10,000
1000 licenses at $20 = $20,000

The market for your app widens as your price is lower and,
the more users your product has, the more money you'll make.

Many small-site developers will spend $20 for a license for
a component without thinking about it, just to check it out.

Spending $500 takes some thought.

It makes a lot of sense to price a component as low as you can.

If you don't sell enough licenses to make money at the lower price,
you'll have a very hard time selling enough licenses to make money at the higher price.

I haven't actually changed the prize or anything, but I have added up
some "criterias" which if fullfilled will make you fall into the
category where we can discuss the prize of the control, maybe even make
it a fraction of what it originally is and even possibly 100% FREE.
Read up at:
http://www.frostinnovation.com/Default.aspx?tabid=72

Basically what I say no is that:

And if you've read this far and feel that the prize is a bit too steep,
we can be willing to discuss the prize if one or more of the following
criterias have been fullfiled.

* You run a small independant start-up with not alot of money
* You run a single man/woman consultant company with no possibillity of
billing your customer for the prize of the control
* You want to buy more then 5 server licenses
* You have told us about a bug in the control which we did not know
about
* You come with a VERY good change request or feature request which we
add up in a later version
* You intent to use the control in a company which is about to go broke

* You intent to use the control in your own personal website
* You manage to appeal to our conscience in any other way

If one or more of the criterias above have been fullfilled we can be
very nice regarding the amount of money we will bill you for your
license!

And the control is GIVEN AWAY for FREE if you fullfill one or more of
the following criterias.

* You intend to use it on a website which does charity work
* You intent to use the control on a site which is a website for an
Open Source project
* You intent to use the control in a school or an institution

So as you can see we have a pretty nice billing policy!
But if you want to have a cheaper prize you need to tell us WHY you
deserve to get the control for less money then all the others would
normally pay for it!

Thomas