It's amazing how the comercial chess engine vendors are enforcing this price politics of:
- same price for all engines (50 $/€ for single CPU, 100 $/€ for the "deep" versions)
- no possibility of upgrade from a previous version.
Especially the second one (e.g. you have Fritz 11 and want Fritz 12) is highly unusual in the software industry, even MS offers the possibility of upgrades from a previous version.
This is even more amazing as there are so many free or open source engines (and other chess software, like GUIs) which compete very well with the comercial ones.
I guess this is a very strong monopol structure and it's possible only because chess software is a really tiny market niche.
Comercial chess engines and price politics
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nionita
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- Location: Austria
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tomgdrums
- Posts: 736
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Re: Comercial chess engines and price politics
nionita wrote:It's amazing how the comercial chess engine vendors are enforcing this price politics of:
- same price for all engines (50 $/€ for single CPU, 100 $/€ for the "deep" versions)
- no possibility of upgrade from a previous version.
Especially the second one (e.g. you have Fritz 11 and want Fritz 12) is highly unusual in the software industry, even MS offers the possibility of upgrades from a previous version.
This is even more amazing as there are so many free or open source engines (and other chess software, like GUIs) which compete very well with the comercial ones.
I guess this is a very strong monopol structure and it's possible only because chess software is a really tiny market niche.
Actually SMK does provide upgrade pricing for Shredder at his own website. IE: You can get a special price when upgrading from Shredder 11 to Shredder 12 etc. etc.
Another reason (of many) why I am a Shredder customer!
And if I am not mistaken, Hiarcs also usually offers upgrade pricing if you are a previous customer.
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Roger Brown
- Posts: 782
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:22 pm
Re: Comercial chess engines and price politics
tomgdrums wrote: Actually SMK does provide upgrade pricing for Shredder at his own website. IE: You can get a special price when upgrading from Shredder 11 to Shredder 12 etc. etc.
Another reason (of many) why I am a Shredder customer!
And if I am not mistaken, Hiarcs also usually offers upgrade pricing if you are a previous customer.
Hello Tom,
Your information above is 100% correct.
I have been the beneficiary of Shredder's discount upgrade pricing.
Later.