let me add a somewhat different view to this debate. I do not think that US$
250 is too high of a price. Consider that a normal full priced version of SPSS
costs around $ 5000 and more. Of course a company like SPSS can afford to give
students the software at a bonus price. But no university is paying a couple of
thousand dollars for a QDA package.
Everyone gets it at a relatively cheap price because the small companies who
produce it have to survive. How many employees does SPSS or MS have? The QDA
companies often consist of only 1 or 2 people, and they have to do the
development, the writing of the manual, give support, etc. etc. They won't save
much money by selling a version offering less support.
Selling an older version to students? The previous versions of some of the
programs are still DOS versions and I suppose no student want to go back to
entering numbers to code text instead of simply using the mouse. An other issus
is that in newer versions not only new features are added but also bug fixes.
Maybe some of you remember MS Acess 1.0 ? It was a program that cost much more
than a QDA packages, but it was so bug ridden that noone probably wishes to go
back to that version, even at a cheaper price. It is not as bad with QDA
programs - and a number of older versions run very well, but it is still an
issue to consider.
Why don't we try to better advocate QDA packages in our universities so that
they buy it for the computer labs? A site licence for a QDA package costs much
less than a site licence for a lot of other programs. It shouldn't be so
difficult to convince them, if you can point out that the demand is there. This
of course loops back to the kind of courses that are offered and that maybe a
better balance should be achiebed between teaching quant and qual methods.
Overall. I do not think that QDA packages are priced too high. If you want
someone to develop them, you have to make it possible that they can afford a
living by doing so. An other option would be to price the non-student packages
at the level of what SPSS costs and then the companies may be able to afford to
give students a copy for next to nothing. I don't think this is a solution that
will find much support.
There are also some demo versions that let you work with small sets of data
files. You can use all the features of the program and save your work, but only
up to a certain project size. Maybe that is a more viable option to ask other
developers to build their demo versions like that, so that students can work on
small projects for classes.
just my 2 cents,
Susanne
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