Re: KDE & Companies: Ask Trolltech Anything

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Re: KDE & Companies: Ask Trolltech Anything
by Hetz Ben Hamo on Saturday 07/Jul/2001, @21:07

Hello Sir,

Here is my question:

1. Why is Trolltech's QT libraries for commercial companies costs so much? ($1500 for a single license according to TT page), while Windows 2000 Pro + Visual Studio costs about $400 less? of course - the price goes down with more licenses are bought, but when a company needs 3-4 licenses - it's still much higher then the Windows Equivalent...

I find this pricing very problematic when I approach commercial companies to write/port applications from Windows to Linux. Most of them simply point me to those prices (and most of them have been looking at QT in Linux and they like it).

Thanks,
Hetz

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·   Also by Hetz Ben Hamo
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me too
by Navindra Umanee on Saturday 07/Jul/2001, @21:28

Good question Hetz! I would like Trolltech to explain their thoughts and strategy on pricing as well. Just last night, I had trouble getting a small company to consider Qt for Windows+future/cross-platform devel because of the price...

-N.

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Good?
by Morty on Saturday 07/Jul/2001, @22:54

I cant se how this becomes a good question at all, $1500 is not much. A decent programmer/developer will cost you close to the same amount of money for a week.

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Re: Good?
by Navindra Umanee on Saturday 07/Jul/2001, @23:13

Well, personally, I have heard everybody else's theories on this but I have never heard Trolltech's official position.

I'm no business man, so I don't know if this really adds up or not, and at the same time I really would like to see more people using Qt commercially whether by small companies or shareware authors.

So I'd definitely like to hear Trolltech's take on this, and maybe what their actual customers think about the issue. If it's indeed working out for them (as it seems to be!), then great, I'm very happy! Qt's commercial survival is a very good thing for KDE.

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Re: Good?
by Morty on Sunday 08/Jul/2001, @12:38

You are of course right, it's a good question. Hearing Trolltech's official
position and resons behind the pricing policy are better than 3. party
theories.

I'm just tired of the constant nagging about the horrible price every time there is a QT article on Linux Today , /. etc, when I fail to see the
problem :)

It's only $125/month for a year, with free upgrades, not bad. If ones buisness can't handle the cost, maybe it's time to take a closer look at the buisness plan.

What the actual customers think about the pricing is the most important question, and what I would like hear. A good question for Shawn Gordon btw.

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Re: Good?
by Ups on Sunday 08/Jul/2001, @21:29

Here I get a 400$ a month ( fulltime job ). This is also a problem when you want to buy development tools (Kylix, BlackAdder) and Qt itself you must pay for Qt license several times, a poblem when you writing simple administrative scripts or shareware programs etc. I think QT for Linux should be much cheaper than for Windows and commercial Unices. I know - there is a personal and enterprise version - but enterprise means that you have table and a few other widgets added ( ha, ha, ha !) and personal means 1000$ ! It is a great and cheap ( yes !) clossplatform development environment, but a very expensive GUI library for Linux. So there is my questions:

Are you plan to diverse your offer ? Will be cheap QT for Linux version released ( with tables, XML, and database access ) ?

Greetings from Eastern Europe

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Re: Good?
by Ups on Sunday 08/Jul/2001, @21:30

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Re: me too
by Erik Engheim on Sunday 08/Jul/2001, @11:32

I actually thought too that the price would be a big problem too. But my experience so far is that doesn't matter too much. However much companies would ask: "Since we are paying so much more for this than Visual C++ what do we get extra? What is the benefits?". Most GUI programmers can see the benefits but not Management. But if you manage to explain that it really gives great benefits I don't think the price matters much to them.

I personally think the price is high because they don't have the enourmouse volume that Visual C++ and Builder has. Still the price isn't that bad if your look at the Enterpise versions of Visual C++ and Borland Builder.

From working in a small software company my experience is that software that isn't sold in big volumes often cost far far more than Qt costs. And you can't argue that if you lower the price you will sell in larger volume because certain software doesn't have a large market. Most people don't need a professional CAD program, professional cross-platform GUI toolkit etc so no matter what the price is they can never sell in the volume that Office programs sell in.

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Re: me too
by neo on Tuesday 10/Jul/2001, @06:36

Hi there QT people,

what about a reduced license fee for students or shareware programmers. I think there are some people that would like to write software with QT, but they also want to sell the program. As they are new to the market, they don't have any money and they can't calculate if they will have success with their small program.

Just an idea.

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Re: me too
by MK on Saturday 21/Oct/2006, @13:55

The conversation with anyone from management who is the least bit clued in often goes something like:

Dev:Hi Mr.Manager I would like to buy buy a copy of QT...its bloody expensive, but its great !!

Manager: Yaa..Can you not find some shareware tools to do the same thing...

Dev: Yes, but QT is much nicer, looks better, it is more powerful then a locomotive...etc.etc....

Manager: Yaaa.. But this consultant says you can do exactly the same thing with wxWidiget, TK, and GTK for FREE. How come you are not using any of those platforms ?

Dev: Welll...we like QT better !!

Manager: Yaaa.. All of our software is internal and not even for sale, so this still seems much too expensive.

Dev: But we think we can save money in the long run.

Manager: What ?!!! Its not even a floating license !!! For that much money !! You are nuts...forget it !!!

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Re: me too
by Boudewijn Rempt on Saturday 21/Oct/2006, @14:01

So, if it's for internal, you don't need to buy the license.

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Re: KDE & Companies: Ask Trolltech Anything
by pos on Tuesday 25/Sep/2001, @09:34

Good Question.

I would like to add to it: why does the Microsoft Windows version of Qt state that it requires Microsoft Visual C++ 6? Is this a technological reason or a market driven reason? Perhaps am I missing something here?

Do you have any plans to move toward other compilers for the windows platform? What about gcc and cygwin? I could convince my employer to pay $400 more for Qt instead of VC++/ATL/MFC but not on top of the price of Visual Studio. They say, "If we have to buy VC anyways, just write it in MFC or ATL."

-pos

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