Posted by Elastic on December 11, 2002 at 15:15:33:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Finale or Sibelius? posted by Adam Smith on December 09, 2002 at 22:55:12:
"Charging what the market will bear" works only where demand is inelastic and the supply is limited by lack of availability of comparable products. I submit that music notation software is a very elastic market indeed, given the number of notation packages being offered.
The answer probably lies in the fact that Finale has a few functions, however infrequently used, that are lacking in PrintMusic that allow one to do a more professional job.
And then there's the WYLIWYK factor. "What you like is what you know" is usually a factor because most customers don't want to learn to use a new product. So they're willing to pay extra to avoid having to waste time learning a new system. But if a lower-priced competing product offered a "skin" that gave virtually the same functionality and feel as Finale, you'd see prices plummet. Microsoft did it with Word, Excel and a whole host of other products.