> I am sure if something modern and regularly updated came out, it would get a lot of uptake.
Would it? See, here's a dirty little secret: people can't deal with change.
Any change made to the software means people have to learn something new. And that results in tech support.
I once had a very nice chat with the CEO of a CNC company and asked him why certain features weren't implemented since his hardware was clearly capable of it. He was quite blunt that a single new feature added about 30% to his tech support budget for almost 3 years, and his tech support budget was almost 1/3 of his annual budget.
So, he simply will not add a feature until it results in an expected 500K in increased revenue or he has to fend off a competitor.
> Still, it's a real opportunity.
Is it? Actually?
And do you know ballroom competitions well enough to get all the corner cases correct? The Douglasses have been to a LOT of competitions and probably wrote this because they got tired of the grief caused by badly run competitions.
How many ballroom competitions exist (<1000)? How much are they willing to pay (<$1000)? And how much will tech support cost?
So, this is less that $1,000,000 per year in revenue MAX. And, this software is already in place with people know how to use it.
Your revenue will likely be $10-20K per year for a long while unless you completely displace this. And they can always drop their prices and block you out if they feel like it. And your tech support costs will be quite high.
I suspect the Douglasses made this same calculation and that's why they aren't improving it. It's just not worth the money.
Would it? See, here's a dirty little secret: people can't deal with change.
Any change made to the software means people have to learn something new. And that results in tech support.
I once had a very nice chat with the CEO of a CNC company and asked him why certain features weren't implemented since his hardware was clearly capable of it. He was quite blunt that a single new feature added about 30% to his tech support budget for almost 3 years, and his tech support budget was almost 1/3 of his annual budget.
So, he simply will not add a feature until it results in an expected 500K in increased revenue or he has to fend off a competitor.
> Still, it's a real opportunity.
Is it? Actually?
And do you know ballroom competitions well enough to get all the corner cases correct? The Douglasses have been to a LOT of competitions and probably wrote this because they got tired of the grief caused by badly run competitions.
How many ballroom competitions exist (<1000)? How much are they willing to pay (<$1000)? And how much will tech support cost?
So, this is less that $1,000,000 per year in revenue MAX. And, this software is already in place with people know how to use it.
Your revenue will likely be $10-20K per year for a long while unless you completely displace this. And they can always drop their prices and block you out if they feel like it. And your tech support costs will be quite high.
I suspect the Douglasses made this same calculation and that's why they aren't improving it. It's just not worth the money.