Straight Talk on Software Pricing

(A manifold.net White Paper)

You don't "get what you pay for", you get what you can negotiate.

If you are still paying more than $1000 for a full-featured GIS system complete with advanced analytic functions, mixed raster and vector capabilities and perfect, double-precision accuracy that includes an Internet Map Server you are not taking advantage of the PC revolution.  Given Manifold® System's pricing, if you are paying more than $245 for a full-featured GIS package you are not getting the best deal.  GIS vendors like ESRI and MapInfo will charge you many thousands of dollars to even approach the capabilities of Manifold System, yet what you get at the end with legacy vendors are products based on extremely old-fashioned technology.

Yes - We really are serious.   You can get a full-featured package with serious spatial and network analytics, perfect support for raster images, vector drawings, embedded surfaces, 3D terrain visualization and a full-featured Internet Map Server for only $245.  See the Manifold System home page and judge for yourself.  Visit the Testimonials page to see what your colleagues are saying, including comparisons to ESRI and other old-fashioned products.  Better still, buy a copy and witness the quality, performance and value of Manifold in real life.

Manifold System is not just the best value in GIS, we think it is the very best GIS at any price.   How much do you have to pay with any other vendor to get Spatial SQL, Point-in-Polygon and Polygon-in-Polygon Spatial Overlay, Buffer Zones, Voronoi Cells,  Automatic Contour Generation, Surface and Point Interpolation, projection on the fly of images, sophisticated georegistration and advanced raster functions?   How much to get all this in a really easy to use, flexible and extensible package that includes a full scripting development environment that uses Microsoft standards like .NET languages, ActiveX and Visual Basic scripting?   Add to to that  a full-power Internet Map Server that allows you to publish your maps dynamically over the webplus an OGC WMS image server and how much would you have to pay?  

There are no technical barriers to providing advanced GIS capability for less than $250 on the desktop: note how almost every major GIS vendor has introduced a low-cost "personal" or "small business" map program in response to competitive pressures.   

In software as in PC hardware, you get the strongest negotiating position by having alternatives.  No vendor will rush to abandon high margins until alternatives emerge which force pricing down.  The emergence of sophisticated and inexpensive visualization programs for under $250 has forced the hands of many GIS vendors into fielding their own versions of lower cost products, even as they try to maintain high price levels for "analytic" capability.  We'd like to offer Manifold System as a true PC market response to provide high value and high capability in full-featured analytic packages as well. 

Markets in Transition

GIS markets tend to be transition markets in PC architectures: the hardware takes advantage of PC market economies but GIS software seems to be priced high compared to mature PC markets.  Our view is that traditional GIS software was originally created long ago for proprietary machine architectures within older-style proprietary markets, and thus it is no surprise that the business models evolved in those proprietary markets have persisted into modern times.  Even though the costs of developing and doing business in PC markets are far less than the costs of traditional workstation and minicomputer markets, don't look for companies that have evolved a lifestyle of charging you $3500 for an application to suddenly cut their price to PC levels. 

Sure, you'll see simplified "personal" or "lite" versions at PC prices, but that's not where they'd like to make their deals. You can be sure you're going to be nickel and dimed at every opportunity to "bump" you up into a multi-thousand dollar purchase, just like the good old days.  Good work if you can get it!  For that matter, you'll often see "old line" GIS companies trying to move into Microsoft Windows environments to take advantage of booming new markets.  Before you accept any vendor's assurances that they're "integrated" with Microsoft Windows, read our Windows Integration Sanity Test and see how they score compared to Manifold.

PC companies like us, on the other hand, have evolved in a business ecology that features extreme cost pressures and requires maximum value for the customer.   That's because the PC world is not a sheltered world - entry is easy, the stakes are huge and thus there is a lot of competition to provide more bang for the buck.   If you try to gouge your customer in mature PC markets, there are a hundred other players lined up ready to do a better job, often for free.

Do they publish prices on their web site?

In addition to providing better product features for less money, the PC market has also evolved much lower cost marketing methodologies, from direct mail to shareware. New technologies driven by PC markets, such as product exploration and direct purchase via the Internet, are providing a lot of options and negotiating leverage to buyers.   PC companies disclose all on their web sites, from product specs to pricing, so comparison shopping is easier.  Don't fall for any dumb excuses:  If a vendor doesn't publish prices on their website, what is it they don't want you to easily compare?

By the way, we're not suggesting there's no merit in the proprietary way of doing business.  There are some fine companies selling really first-rate products with that approach.  We respect their technology and understand that pragmatic considerations other than use of modern technology and price/performance value will at times drive purchasing decisions. No doubt the owners of those companies think it's great you have to pay them ten times what their software is worth in open markets.  With the greatest respect, though, we would like to point out the benefits possible with a  PC market approach, the Manifold approach.  Perhaps our alternative is a better way for you.

The Manifold Approach

We created Manifold System as something larger than simply a cool new GIS package with better capabilities.  We really believe there is a market opportunity to sell GIS into truly mass markets.  There are over three hundred million people today who use Microsoft Office on their Windows PCs.  Of those three hundred million, perhaps one hundred million people are more than intelligent enough to use GIS to explore, analyze and present data in a geographic context.  Unless you have to deal with a crazily complex system like the stuff sold by legacy GIS vendors, there's no reason using a GIS to make cool maps and show data is any more complex than creating a simple  Excel spreadsheet or using Microsoft Word to make tables or format a document. 

We see the two barriers opposing the breakout of GIS into mass markets as price and failure to support Microsoft Windows standards.  At manifold.net, we really believe that a sensibly-priced GIS package that is focused on supporting Windows and Microsoft standards can break out into the mass market.  That's our mission.

We'd be less than human not to wish to take advantage of high price levels in GIS and networking markets.  However, if we did that we'd consign our product into a specialty niche within GIS and network markets and lose our broader distribution.   Compared to spread-sheets and CAD in general, GIS is still pretty niche oriented.  It doesn't need to be that way. 

GIS people are often astonished at the price of Manifold, but that's only because they are unfamiliar with prices in mass markets.  Take Microsoft's prices as an example.  You can buy all of Microsoft Office Premium for under $500.  That includes several major applications and a dozen or so minor ones, where all of the major applications are as sophisticated or more so than the GIS applications sold for $1000 to $5000.  No one would accuse Microsoft of being a give-away, yet here they are selling intense, sophisticated applications for an average price of less than $100 per application.   By that standard, Manifold's price is high!

The End of the Dinosaurs?

We remember the days when minicomputer dinosaurs like DEC and Data General ruled the world and newcomers like Dell scurried about like small mammals.   As technology changed the minicomputer dinosaurs were wiped out by the superior performance, better cost structure and more rapid evolution of PC technologies.  Will that happen to the legacy GIS vendors?

If you are buying software from a legacy GIS vendor you know better than we do if your vendor is dependent upon charging thousands of dollars per seat to stay alive.  When prices in GIS markets fall to modern levels of around $250 a seat we think those vendors will be caught in the same trap of skyrocketing costs and plummeting revenue that wiped out Prime, Data General and even once-mighty DEC.  It's only a matter of time. (T Rex image © by Tony J. Trammell - used by permission)

The best way for a vendor to avoid that trap is to build a company from the ground up for modern times.  That's how Dell created a company that can thrive in modern times, by selling direct and focusing on high value and rock bottom pricing.  That's the manifold.net way.   We welcome mass market price levels because they clean out the deadwood that gets in the way of building a mass market for GIS.

Ten Strategic Factors that Make Manifold a Better Buy

1. The Product IS the Message  The more money your vendor puts into marketing, the more your purchase money gets spent on  marketing.  It's that simple. Every dollar a vendor spends comes from you the customer, so when they spend money on marketing they are spending your money.  Manifold Net is a direct sales operation because that keeps the cost of marketing low.  We don't print spec sheets because the Internet is a lot more efficient way of getting timely data to customers.  We're not naive enough to think that building a better mousetrap assures market success, but we do feel that technology matters a lot in the computer business.   We think decisive advancements in technology are won through investments in engineering, not in advertising.  When you purchase a Manifold product your money gets spent on better technology that serves you every time you launch the product.

2.  We make 94% of the target market 100% happy. Manifold System was created from the ground up for Microsoft Windows, with support for Windows 2003, XP, 2000, NT 4.0, 98 and Windows Me.  We waste no time supporting eighteen variants of UNIX, Mac, or other interesting but otherwise low volume platforms.  If your vendor sells versions for lots of minority platforms, every time you buy a Microsoft version some part of your purchase price goes to subsidize all those other versions.    Why should you spend your money bailing out competitors who failed to switch to Microsoft when you did?

3.  Better values in PC Hardware make better values in PC Applications.   Most other GIS and networking software was developed on minicomputers and proprietary workstations that cost their developers a fortune.  We develop Manifold using state-of-the-art multiprocessor Intel and AMD machines that do much more and cost a tenth as much.  Our efficient development infrastructure means our product costs you less. To take just two examples, we pay $100 for 250+ gigabyte hard disks and $0 for gigabit Ethernet cards (they're built into our motherboards).  A state-of-the-art PC platform complete with a 3+ Gigahertz, 64 bit processor costs us under $400, including processor but excluding RAM and drives.   We'd bet that most GIS software out there was developed using small hard disks that cost more on the order of $20,000 and slow Ethernet interfaces that cost $1000 and systems that cost around $20,000.  That's serious money when multiplied by the number of seats in a development organization.  If you are paying mainframe prices for your GIS software, guess who is paying  to amortize all those bad hardware buys?   

4. Software costs less to develop in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET / VC++ / MFC environments.  15 years ago the development environment on PCs was a bad joke.  Most people programming for PCs were creating software in UNIX environments to take advantage of the better dev tools in UNIX, and then recompiling for PCs.  That's all changed:  Now the very best tools are on PCs. All those cool menu bars and buttons and controls you see in the PC world come absolutely free, not to mention killer capabilities like those offered by .NET.  Plus, our development tools are not only faster and easier to use, they also cost five to ten times less than the tools people are forced to buy in proprietary environments.  When you buy Manifold System, you're taking advantage of Microsoft, the best funded and most aggressive software tools development organization on earth.  There's nothing like having Bill Gates clearing the way for you on development tools.

5. Not a penny wasted on legacy code.   Surprisingly enough, many of the GIS applications running today were developed in the days when FORTRAN  ruled the earth. Not only does legacy code cost vendors a lot to maintain, it costs users a fortune to operate.  Even newer applications like ArcGIS still struggle with legacy architectures. Running weird, nonstandard languages like AML or Avenue as your scripting languages costs a lot more than running Visual Basic or Javascript or C# as the scripting language: those costs pile up every step of the way from hiring people to finding someone who can train in "AML."   The cost of maintaining legacy code will bust any budget.  Manifold was developed from the ground up in modern VC++ and takes advantage of current and future Microsoft strategies, including extensive use of .NET. Our scripting language from Day One has been any ActiveX Microsoft scripting language with Visual Basic scripting and Microsoft JavaScript shipped by default and current support for scripting in whatever .NET language you prefer.  With Manifold, every penny you spend is invested in state-of-the-art code.

6. Somebody has to pay for all those "suits" - Don't let it be you!  While it sure is flattering to have a $150,000-per-year GIS salesman maneuvering deftly within your organization, really, is paying for such operatives the best use of your software dollars?  Who is paying the high-priced salesman?  You are! Much of the cost of many corporate applications goes to maintain the sales and marketing organizations that promote them, in person, to you.   Plus, the moment a salesman shows up at your door you are committed to paying local sales tax on your purchase, which often adds 8% or even 9% to your costs. If you can take advantage of direct information via Internet and make your buy decisions without a salesman at your elbow you can get lots more for your money. 

7. Every employee a tiger.  95% of the team at manifold.net has either mathematical or programming background, and over 80% of staff work on programming or math.  Administration, accounting, general management, sales, and marketing are managed using less than 10% of total headcount.  Our organization is "flat": suggestions from customers are never more than one person away from the development team that will implement them.  When you speak with our sales, support, and marketing people, you speak with people that have an unusual degree of technical expertise and authority.  

8. Smart Siting Saves you More.    Placing North American operations in Nevada has lowered our costs dramatically over a traditional Silicon Valley location:  there is no state tax on income (a 9% - 10% savings) and no inventory or corporate property tax in Nevada.    By selling direct from Nevada, we eliminate the need for non-Nevada customers to pay sales tax, an automatic reduction in cost of 8.5% to California customers, for example.  Along with the direct tax savings, a Nevada location saves big in the elimination of administrative and accounting overhead required to administer compliance with such taxes. Nevada provides a high quality of life at a fraction of the expense of Silicon Valley. Most people are surprised to learn that the economic engine powering Nevada's economy over the last twenty years has been the growth of distribution, warehousing, logistics, and insurance industries in response to a superior tax and regulatory structure.  We use this logistics infrastructure to provide you with better service at a lower cost. On the way to providing you superior value, an overall 20% reduction in costs can be a big help.   

9. Worldwide Sales and Support via Internet - Internet is  a superior way to deliver lots of sales information to a very large number of visitors.  It is much superior to trade shows at a fraction of the cost. The web site you are visiting today gets more hits per hour than most GIS trade shows deliver to any given booth during the entire run of the show. The Manifold Net Online Store runs 24 hours a day, 365 days per year to enable customers worldwide to purchase and download Manifold products instantly. Internet is also a superior way way to deliver products. Downloaded products (or license-only transactions in the case of Manifold products, which are normally delivered on CD) save the regulatory and customs costs of trans-border shipments as well as administrative overhead for everyone.  By selling to the entire world community, manifold.net increases the volume of each product and so can amortize development costs over a much larger number of units.  Finally, by providing technical support through Internet we can publish updates at near-zero cost for all involved.

10. Leveraging the power of the Manifold community - By focusing on development, the manifold.net organization can evolve Manifold System much faster in response to customer requests than other GIS packages can do.  Many observers have commented that Manifold's free Service Packs deliver more new features and improvements for free than the major updates which are sold by other GIS vendors.  The current Manifold System release schedule issues a major new release every year to eighteen months with hundreds of minor improvements delivered via Service Pack in between.  Manifold Service Packs are free and are used to deliver numerous upgrades and new features in addition to bug fixes.  Consider the tempo of recent Manifold updates: Release 5.50 was issued in January of 2003 (adding over 471 improvements over 5.00) and in June, 2003 SP1 for 5.50 added over 100 new features and improvements. In October, 2003, SP2 for 5.50 added over 200 more new features and improvements, for a total of over 770 improvements in a single year.  Release 6.00 was issued in June of 2004 with over 470 more improvements and rock-solid, bulletproof quality. SP1 for Release 6.00 was issued in October, 2004, with over 320 improvements.  Release 6.50 was issued in July, 2005, with over 630 improvements, and the 6.50 SP1 service pack expected in April, 2006 will add yet hundreds more.  Rapid response to customer suggestions and fast evolution of Manifold System based on the desires of the Manifold user community (in months not years) means your investment in Manifold System will benefit from the collective intelligence of many thousands of Manifold users who send suggestions, cool new ideas and comments to manifold.net.  Tired of waiting for your GIS vendor to respond to wish lists that are years old? Annoyed by maintenance fees that charge hundreds of dollars for a handful of minor improvements? Time to switch to Manifold!

See for Yourself

Get a copy of Manifold System today and become familiar with the system.   You will be utterly astonished at the power and sophistication of our product.   No other value in GIS or analytics comes close.   We know that a good price may attract customers, but it will be the power, ease of use, and quality of our product which keeps them.

If you are a VAR or developer of GIS related applications, use Manifold to create new applications.  It's all the same to us whether you charge $1000 for your re-sold application or $100,000 - We know that our success depends on your success and we will do all we can to make it easier for you to make more profit with less effort.

If there's ever anything you wanted to see in a GIS system that you're not getting from your current vendor, tell us.  By placing our big bets on our development efforts, we're in good shape to make your dreams come true.    Every release includes a host of features, some major, some minor, requested by customers.  Under our Rapid Development methodology, your suggestions go through only two people before they appear in a release.  Email requests are routed to a project manager who will establish direct email contact with you if required. Project managers work in two person teams with the development manager responsible for implementation.  That two person team makes the "go" decision and oversees implementation of the request within the release pipeline.

Now's the time to purchase Manifold! -  High value software has finally arrived in GIS.  If you find yourself wondering why your existing GIS vendor is overcharging you for living-fossil software, buy a copy of Manifold and see what a modern software vendor like manifold.net can do for you.  Save time, save money, and feel smarter too!

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