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Originally Posted by SomeGuyMMS
All software developers have to right to complain and will continue to complain. Thats hard earned money you are taking from their children. Soon all apps will be web-based, this will help prevent users from pirating.
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I never said they don't have the right to complain, I just said that it's futile. As hard as people try to protect their software, there will always be someone smart enough to crack it... Unless you require web validation every launch, it's pretty impossible to protect yourself, and if you require that kind of web validation, you're going to alienate your client base because of privacy issues, system resource demands, validation glitches, etc.
Again, I'm not condoning piracy for the most part. I'm simply stating that it's not nearly the problem some people try to make it out to be. Most developers would like you to believe that 1 out of 3 computers is LOADED with pirated software, when the real numbers are probably more like 1 out of 100 or even fewer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SomeGuyMMS
This maybe the case with large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, but us small guys need every sale that we can get. Companies that develop apps for PDAs are generally small in size and only charge $5-$10 for their apps. This is because that is what the market can bare. I'm sure companies like Resco can not survive off of selling applications alone. And I'm sure it is because you can go to the Newsgroups and download every Apllication that sell.
Take Arcsoft's MMS for example, it was not licensed to Sprint users, but it was still installed on every Windows Mobile device Sprint users had. That is well more than a minority of users.
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Here's the problem i see with this logic... guys like you aren't developing apps which are intended for widespread distribution. You're writing apps which are aimed at a fairly small group of users. Clearly, anytime you enter into a niche marketplace, your risks go up, and in the case of computer programming, piracy is going to be a big problem when your niche is improving something for a group of people who are very tech smart. A great example of this is ultimatelauncher. It's too complicated for joe Schmuck to want to figure out, and it's core group of users are people who are smart enough to find a crack for it. I'll bet that developer has taken a beating on his product.
As for your arcsoft example, do you really think that a majority of Sprint PocketPC users had it installed? Again, I'd bet it was a fairly small minority of sprint Users who had it. Bear in mind, the people on these boards, and even the people on every pocketpc/sprint/pda forum on the net make up only a fraction of sprints pocketpc clientele. Just as a quick example, a few weeks ago I was in a sprint store for about an hour.. during that time, they sold 4 moguls, yet I have NEVER come across another sprint mogul user from Utah on any of the message boards I post on... Even if that hour was totally uncharacteristic, it still shows you how small of a percentage of their clientele frequent any of these boards.
Finally, one of the core complaints in this thread is that software (particularly WM software) is overpriced. Very few software items are priced under $15, and some of them are downright CRAZY, charging $40-50+ for pocketpc apps that really aren't anything special. As someone said, if a piece of software for their PDA is priced under $15, they don't even bother looking for a crack, because it's such a small amount of money that it's not worth risking a virus or a half hour search.. The problem comes from the people who think their software is worth far more than it's worth, and those are the folks who are the biggest victims of piracy (specifically the two companies you mentioned).