Re: Practice: Pay-Per-Use

Agreed. The information of where the money flows should do just that.
I said it doesn't matter for the short term decisions intending that 
we know the two geographic regions are different and we are 
fulfilling customer desires. In the long term there are many 
statistics being analized. The company I am at is very serious about 
such things. The E.C. and Board seem to be the sharpest I have worked 
for!

As the development methodology evolves soon this place will be the 
envy of many companies and their programmers!

I remember working at the world's largest applications provider. I 
was on the Mac team. I asked the CFO if they tracked revenue per 
product. Of course he said they did. I asked him how much revenue the 
Macintosh line was generating. He said they didn't break the numbers 
down by platform. I asked if he could do so and he said no they are 
not recorded with that information and thus it was impossible.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Mac's, I have 3 at home and only one PC 
running Windows, but I am very practical. The amount of money that 
was spent on some of these projects that competed with software that 
shipped on every Mac seemed to be a mistake in my view. Since they 
didn't keep track of the revenue I couldn't nail my concerns down to 
anything solid, but I always felt it would be cheaper for the company 
to buy all of their Mac users a new PC and send it to them.

Noting that I was an extreme Mac bigot back then and I still prefer 
OS X over Windows 2003 Server!

I wrote the QuickTime VCR which was the first QuickTime movie player 
available for download instead of Simple Player. I love my Mac!

Geoff

--- In xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Kent 
Beck" 
<kentb@xxxx> wrote:
> I find it interesting that preference for billing model has a 
cultural
> component. However, the customers' preferences are not the only 
issue the
> business should be concerned with. The point I am making is that 
increased
> information available to the team in the form of changes to the 
revenue
> stream leads to better software development. If this improvement 
turned into
> significant cost reductions, it might be worth taking a risk on the 
business
> side to introduce an "unpopular" payment model.
> 
> Kent Beck
> Three Rivers Institute
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> > [mailto:xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
> > Behalf Of 
> > SirGilligan
> > Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 8:49 AM
> > To: xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: [xpe2e] Practice: Pay-Per-Use
> > 
> > I am in a business were we do both subscriptions and pay-per-use. 
We 
> > have a "huge" customer base.
> > 
> > The users from the U.S. prefer subscription based products.
> > The users from the U.K. and Europe prefer Pay-per-use.
> > 
> > Could it be cultural?
> > Could it be the amount of consumer debt that is carried?
> > Could it be the lack of understanding of costs and economics?
> > 
> > I don't guess ther reasons matter. The preferences of the two 
groups 
> > is really all a business should be concerned with for the short 
term.
> > 
> > Maverick
> > (a.k.a SirGilligan)
> > 
> > --- In xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, 
> > Friedrich Brunzema 
> > <brunzefb@xxxx> wrote:
> > > There is something about pay per use that I don't like. I don't 
> > really
> > > know what it is, but (perhaps its just the wording - pay, pay, 
> > pay). 
> > > Renting a video from a store could be perceived as per per use, 
and
> > > ordering a pay TV movie would certainly be that as well. 
Somehow I 
> > see
> > > pay TV more as pay per use than renting a video from a store, 
even 
> > if
> > > this does not make logical sense to me.
> > > 
> > > Perhaps what I don't like about pay per use is what's so good 
about 
> > it
> > > in terms of feedback -- it reminds me that I have to pay every 
day.
> > > 
> > > Just think about cars for one second.  If you had to put money 
down
> > > every time you got into your car to pay for the real car costs 
(not
> > > just the gas!) - this would provide good feedback on how much 
you 
> > are
> > > actually spending every day.  The cost of longer trips would 
become
> > > very apparent.  Taxi rides are also pay per use,  which make 
costs
> > > very apparent. I suspect many people would use cabs instead of 
> > owning
> > > a car if the costs were really in your face.
> > > 
> > > From a business perspective, pay per use probably makes a great 
deal
> > > of sense.  I also appreciate what Kent is saying about money as 
the
> > > ultimate feedback, and how it can help to create even more 
value. 
> > > Still, there's something about it I don't like.
> > > 
> > > Friedrich Brunzema
> > > Extreme Programmer & Coach
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >