Thomas J. Gordon

Will Mobile App Pricing Fall to Zero?

a4ism, I'm not saying the system doesn't work. I'm saying there's tremendous downward pressure on software prices on all delivery platforms and asking if iTunes apps are next. Economics states that pricing moves towards MC = MR (Marginal Cost = Marginal Revenue) and the marginal cost of producing another unit of software is very low, so that's not a surprising result. You bring up an interesting point that there are smaller ecosystems of interested buyers and willing developers and they may a healthy ongoing phenomenon on the iTunes store. I don't particularly have any visibility into those ecosystems and in my mind the only people who have visibility into that are successful developers in that space and Apple.

Will Mobile App Pricing Fall to Zero?

Sheldon1, I hope you're right and I think some people are able to charge for content now (wsj premium, barrons, ?). I'm tired of advertising. I think a good micro payments system would help the cause of those who want to "pay for what they value and value what they pay for". I think one of the reasons iTunes works for payment is most people keep a balance and can buy whenever they want without pulling out a credit card or typing in their paypal id.

Will Mobile App Pricing Fall to Zero?

Jack Dee, My apologies. The pricing I mention was from the 80's not the 90's. My point still stands and 1980's dollars are woth a hole lot more than 2009 dollars.

Will Mobile App Pricing Fall to Zero?

Jack Dee, I remember very specifically Word Star, Word Perfect, Lotus 123 being sold for over $400 and the media they were sold on being copy protected. I view ms office as word processing (word) plus spreadsheet (excel) and powerpoint (didn't exist in the early days but is valuable). Home and Student Office Upgrade which contains these items can be bought by anyone, not just students, for slightly over $100. I stand by my statement and those were 1990 dollars which are worth more than 2009 dollars.

App Mania: The Big Business of Downloads

I want to be clear about my comments on the itunes app store. I have no beefs with apple, they treated me really well. I'm sure some people will be successful with itunes apps. but the way you make money appears to me to be converging with the way you make money on the web.

App Mania: The Big Business of Downloads

I actually did an itunes finance app and it was not what I expected. My thought going in was that the iphone was a platform where a person with a good idea could make some money off of software. I wasn't interested in doing something for free on the web and then figuring out how to make money on it. The wintel pc platform hasn't had any new paid software by independent developers in a long time. The iphone app store is now becoming just like the web. You have to offer the software for free or really cheap and find other ways to make money off it. Everything on the iphone app store is getting shoved towards offering the app for free and making money off advertising or in app purchases. Which is just what the web is.

Will IBM Use Sun to Counter Client Computing Competitors?

I don't know why everyone is obsessed with StarOffice. IBM has Lotus, why would they do anything with staroffice? Microsoft won the desktop tools contest for any group of customers that matters, and until whole new devices come out that make Microsofts desktop tools obsolete that isn't going to change.

Shorting the Four Horsemen as Market Grinds Lower?

I am shorting amzn as a hedge. The p to e is high, I think their q4 was forward momentum from earlier in the year that will not continue into 2009. But if the stock market goes up, sales of publicly traded companies increase, the economy gets better, amzn goes up, my short loses, but the rest of my portfolio gains so I am happy. If everything is going downhill, amzn seems like a good stock to be short.