purchase of software on the cheap?

You can get brand new, perfectly usable, non pre-owned software which is as good as, if not better than, the de facto market leader packages for a variety of prices including free/open source packages for precisely €0.

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This is not proven, by any matter or means, for technical, industry-specific software such as articad.

As I mentioned several times already I was referring to "horizontal"/commodity type applications, such as office/productivity suites, as opposed to "vertical"/specialised/niche applications.

why then did you choose to selectively rebut my most recent post which addressed the issue of whether kitchen designers should use a product such as articad, and never touched upon the issues surrounding commodity-type applications?

I thought that you were talking about software in general. On re-reading your post I see that you were referring to the specialist software specifically. Sorry about that. I still think that the car analogy is meaningless though.

Fair enough.

There are plenty of obvious alternatives to Dell and to eircom. In specific business sectors such as fitted kitchen design, there are usually a lot less - usually one or two major market leaders, some smaller established competitors and a number of unproven alternatives.

I am not saying that people should automatically go for the market leader in every case.

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What would be wrong with even trying out the 'unproven alternatives'? Some companies will give you a better deal for unproven software. If no one buys the unproven product, then there will never be any new products on the market! I would suggest try before you buy, and maybe save a couple a grand.

However, if a high proportion of kitchen designers are happy using articard, then chances are that it is a good, reliable product. There is no such assurance if one opts for an unproven alternative. The chances of $30 product offering comparable efficiency, productivity and reliability as a €3,000+ package are remote in the extreme.

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No. I can't see that this is correct. I've witnessed first hand where companies use software which isn't good, or reliable, but the product still might be the market leader. In most cases the product has simply been around longer.

Sometimes you're paying €3000+ for the salesperson.


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Irish Payroll Software

cost of trying out an open source alternate to see if it does what you want : €0.... try it out , like it use it , don't like it pay the $???? the commerical product costs....i think thats all i need to say...

In any real-life business situation, there are obvious time and efficiency costs in installing software, learning how to use it (and more particularly how to use it correctly) and how to integrate it into existing procedures and processes without interrupting customer service. The cost of the software can be a high multiple of its purchase price.

Unregistered said:

i am a carprenter by trade fitted kitchens etc. so am looking into packages which ex vat come in at 3k+ never mind needing office suite and the likes of tas books !!! and laptop .... is there anyway of easing the big outlay

Thanks

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I could sort out a carpenter with no IT skills in three hours to produce invoices, quotes, VAT etc. If you in Dublin or south east interested and have half an hour to spare for one to one demo contact me at davidoco@fastmail.fm.

Cost no more than 300 euro with virtually 24 hour support.