Scott Hanselman

WTF?? They must have read the software equivalent of Field of Dreams, "if you develop it, they will buy...".

Or, more likely, they read Eric Sink's latest article on product pricing.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsoftware/html/software08052004.asp

"Charge as much as you can get" (not an actual quote, just my summary)

(The entire article is worth reading.)

I can't decide if this is hilarious, offensive or both.

Figure things like ReSharper go for $99, CodeSmith for $75 or LLBLGen Pro for less than $250--they're clearly just out of touch or not extremely bright.

Let's help them out and post what we think would be reasonable for them to charge. I wouldn't pay more than $25 personally, I have good editing capabilities for xml and it's just not going to save me that much time.

Come on give them a break.

Gotta make a million before msbuild comes out

I personally don't think their price point is all that absurd.

It's rather audacious to try to sell something which is an add-on for an open source technology anyway. The vast majority of people who use NAnt are simply not willing to pay a dime for this tool. Many of the ones who *are* willing to pay are probably not all that price-sensitive.

In some sense, these guys have made a conscious choice to go with a "high-price-low-volume" approach. I generally prefer the higher volume strategies, but premium pricing is not as crazy as you might think.

The interesting point for me is that they are selling only through a reseller. I'm sure Component Source is getting 40 points, so the ISV is only going to net 150. They probably set the price high to accomodate these channel costs.

Bottom line: I'm not saying I like their choice, but I think it's conceivable that it could work out okay for them.

Amen, Brother. I can't sell this to my boss. :) I am fine using XSD + VS.NET Or good old nxml-mode in emacs.
Thank you very much.

I fully agree with you Scott!

I read Erik Sink's article. The piece on price complaints was funny :) It's true. No matter what price you use including paying someone to use your product, there are always people who will complain.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsoftware/html/software08052004.asp