![]() The choice for potential new customers is whether at $560 (bundle purchase at $400) the current piecemeal software is anywhere near competitive or worth it, without the old updates forever promise. The choice for existing customers is purely one of stay with the current software path (accepting the loss of “free updates”), or to accept the sunk cost of our large Topaz investments over the years and bail out for greener pastures. Given the increased marketing difficulty in catching new customers willing to pay $560 + $100+/year, the update revenue from the remaining old-timer customers is more needed than ever. There is likely financially no way to undo neither the poor design decisions over the past couple of years, nor to grandfather old customers into a “continue free forever updates as promised”. Just the initial $560 buy-in is not easy to market without “free updates forever”.īut there is probably at this point no real good way for “management” to answer further, other than on potential direct, simple financial/technical questions about how the future path will work. ![]() The issue becomes having enough selling proposition for those new customers to accept the exceedingly high cost of $560 for all the pieces, while still having to pay yearly “update” fees to keep the software running both for functionality and as OSs change. But those will be many times harder to acquire now, given the loss of the “free for life” updates selling point. For Topaz hopefully a reasonable percentage will grudgingly accept the latest new path and stay in the hole Topaz dug for us.įor future new sales revenue, then add potential new customers that have never been under the “free upgrades for life” scheme. Some will drop out, and a certain percentage will continue with Topaz to save their existing investment (money and learning time). An obstacle for some, but maybe worth it even for slower learners to avoid the $560+$100 proposition.īut at this moment in time, I personally believe that “management” is merely thinking this way:Įxisting old-time customers will whine for a while like we are now, and will (as many comments on this thread indicate) split in two. Photoshop’s downside then is one of complexity and learning curve. Separate standalone apps with separate output files to color change, deNoise, mask, sharpen, change size, … and charging 5 times the price if you needed to do it all. Try to imagine Photoshop switching from a do-all-edits-in-one model to chopping up its functionality into pieces comparable to Topaz. In a competitive world, compare to Adobe at $120/year to lease both Photoshop and Lightroom (with NO other initial investment), or Affinity Photo at $50 to purchase initially, less for updates/year. In the new model, that $560 would also come with $100/year for updates to keep it running. Problem is, that if all this piecemeal functionality was combined into one, you likely still could not charge more than around $100 for the whole combo program. That is an extremely high price either way, given that the functionality in these 7 separate products all belong in a SINGLE program to have a natural workflow. Looking at the situation and Topaz current product page, they have 7 distinct products at a combined cost of $560 if purchased separately, or $400 if a new customer purchase both of the “bundles”. I obviously have no direct knowledge about Topaz’s financials, but I doubt there is another other option. Only way is to continue on the new path already chosen and hope for the best. ![]() Without unlimited funds, there is no way to undo the deep hole Topaz has dug for itself in the software path taken. As indicate, at this point there is really not much “management” can say, other than answering very specific questions about the future.
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