Remco

10/1/2012 11:35:07 AM #

All the standard payment methods will be supported - i.e. Credit Card, Check, Wire/Purchase Order.  The processing itself will be handled by a payment processor that specialises in just this sort of transaction, so I'm certain this won't be a problem for you.

Remco

10/1/2012 11:37:18 AM #

Great to hear!  New Zealand has been doing quite well with NCrunch adoption lately... It's making me proud to be a Kiwi

Remco

10/1/2012 6:43:47 PM #

Hi Hannes -

Thanks for taking the time to share your views on this.  As nice as it is to go to sleep at night with only positive comments on this blog, I'd be naive to think that the expected prices would suit every company and every individual, and I appreciate hearing from someone that doesn't agree with the pricing, in part because it does give me a bit more of an opportunity to explain why the prices are where they are and hopefully help to open a broader perspective on the subject.

As I think your main point describes, software is usually priced around people's perception of 'price points', namely, the prices of other products that sit within a similar space or could in some shape or form be considered comparable.  Because we don't have a per-unit manufacturing cost, and the value of any software product is often subjective, this is the reference many people use in order to decide whether or not the product they are buying is good value, or a rip-off.  For the sake of argument, here is a list of price points that someone might consider relevant to a tool like NCrunch.  Since I think you're most interested in the company/corporate licensing, I'll limit the list to just those values:

Jetbrains' Resharper - $349
Jetbrains' DotCover - $199
NCover Desktop - $658
TestDriven.NET - £105 (about $170)
TypeMock Isolator - $799 ($1598 for the full deal)
Telerik Test Studio - $2499
Telerik JustMock - $399

NCrunch - $289

Resharper is an amazing product, and it deserves all the hype and credit it gets (IMHO, perhaps more).  Because it's so ubiquitous, whenever people think of a developer productivity tool, they usually first think of Resharper.  NCrunch is a productivity tool too, so the association seems logical.  However, in reality, the tools could not be more different from each other and they actually complement one another very well.  They are designed to cater for different situations and actually target entirely different markets.  Resharper can be found useful by just about every C# and VB.NET developer on the planet, where NCrunch caters only to a small subset of .NET developers that have the discipline and quality-centred focus needed to write automated tests.

I really wish I could say that most developers write tests, but if I did, it would be a flat outright and dirty lie.  Any consultant, contractor or employee with a few years experience knows just how bad this industry really is.  NCrunch has helped many people into taking a more disciplined approach to quality software, but I would be surprised if we're even 15% of the way there towards truly widespread adoption of TDD.  The uptake of NCrunch shows this.  I've been really happy at the response to NCrunch, but this website isn't taking thousands of hits every day from hungry developers eager for testing.  The economic scale of a product like NCrunch is just totally different to Resharper.  Someone from Jetbrains may jump out and correct me on this, but I would say that as a developer you get far less for what you put in.

In reality, many of the other price points listed above are probably far more applicable to a tool like NCrunch.  They all target the test driven developer and all aim to reduce the cost and complexity of software within the .NET field.  If you line up many of the prices shown in this list with the price offer for NCrunch, $289 may look like a much better deal.

I don't assume to know the effort that other developers have put into the products listed above.  All I can do is to look at what they offer and ask myself whether I feel they represent good value.  Does paying $399 or $799 for a cutting edge mocking framework make sense?  It must to some developers, otherwise it wouldn't be worth the while of the companies that develop this software.  I've worked on projects where tools like this would have paid for themselves very quickly, and I genuinely believe that NCrunch does the same.

I'm not going to be drawn into an argument over whether a company deserves to charge more money simply because they are a team v.s. an individual developer trying to stay above the breadline.  People are entitled to their own opinions on whether or not the appearance of a company has any real impact on their ability to produce valuable software.  I chose to play an open and personal hand with the users of NCrunch because this is how I prefer to work.  I could have just as easily started out as a faceless company and hid behind flash web design and ticketing systems in an effort to present a more professional image, but I chose instead to invest that time in making a better product.  Every business starts somewhere.  Microsoft didn't get to 90,000 employees on their first day.

Anyway, as you've already said, it's not too late to change things.  If the whole user base suddenly evaporates because of a $289 price tag, I could still just drop the product and forget the whole thing entirely.  The sad reality is that there just isn't enough demand for good TDD to sell $50 licenses, and even if there was, just trying to support the product would cost far in excess of any money that would come from it.  I'll see what the response is like over the next few days... as I'm writing this reply, more comments are already appearing here.

Thanks!

Remco

Hannes Kochniß

10/2/2012 8:08:45 PM #

I agree with some of the points, especially you don't appeal to as much devs as R# does. Ok, fair.
The problem I have is really: I hoped for NCrunch, when it goes commercial, to really have a landslise effect on the .NET landscape. Like you often see in the current Webspace, where new sites with freemium totally change the landscape and attract a huge folllowership, and then the people find a way to make big money with freemium or similar models. What really sucks to me is: NCrunch won't be the big "wakeup" call to companies like JetBrains at this pricepoint.

So again, most points are fair, but where it gets a bit unfair is this sentence: "In reality, many of the other price points listed above are probably far more applicable to a tool like NCrunch".
*buzzer* No. Unfortunately I'm a former user of all of these, as my position is the one of an all-around testlead in my company. And as it the n-th comparison of TypeMock/JustMock with something else, I guess I'll have to write something down.

I'm sure you know as well as I do, that JustMock/TypeMock just don't belong into the list, as well as TestStudio.
I'll reiterate from my other answer above: JustMock/TypeMock/Fakes framework from MS allow me (primary usecase) to use Runtime Proxies to inject any TestCode, it's for old legacy codebases, and guarantee my company to introduce 0 bugs to get inmemory, unittest-like tests running, without refactorings. Again: key is _guarantee_ to not introduce bugs into an old codebase. NO refactorings need. That.. is.. HUGE. Totally different usecase, for often different codebases in sometimnes different companies, compared to NCrunch usecases/users.
Short: TypeMock/JustMock: targeted at brownfield projects, big legacy codebases, customer base, normally a lot of money involved in that codebase. NCrunch: mostly TDD greenfield projects, often opensource, small private projects, which tend to not make millions.. But of course that will change. I'm just talking about the usecases right now.

When NCrunch gets a runtime proxy feature that can do the same as TypeMock/JustMock (I doubt it ever will, given the scope of the product), let me know, your product all of a sudden increased its worth by at least 400$ per seat.

TestStudio: as a former user, that is a BIG suite positioned against MS TestStudio, so the functionality (Testers recording tests, videos, test reporting) is totally different ballgame. Not even near. Statistics, bringing teams together, make manual testing actually bearable with a recorder that works, lots of stuff in there. TestRecorder, Test Database. Such stuff. Totally different to NCrunch. Therefor pricepoint > 2000$.

NCover Desktop: Coverage statistics, most complete feature set about everything that is coverageanalysis. You also took the full pro version: Website that shows that stuff, full support team, etc. A lot of tooling around it. But having said that, I think the price point lives from the fact that until now, there is no real competitor, and NCrunch is still an underdog. But still: different usecases, no real comparison.

Fairest comparsion:
Jetbrains' DotCover - $199
Your product is like DotCover, +the MUCH needed Live update. +metrics, -export feature (dotcovers HTML export is actually an unknown and the ONLY way to get per line coverage markers in JSON, which I deperately need for an internal, but that's a minor point). -support (right now, guess that changes; I don't care too much about that). -R# integration, -a bit of polish on the UI side. -Attaching to external process. But I don't want to be mean, I know with the pace you have, that minus points (not R# integration I guess) will be fixed.

So is it more worth than 199$ DotCover? For the standard usecase in TDD: of course! Compared, the $289 seem reasonable.

Just don't write it's "cheap", as it is rather "normal placed" in the market. The problem: the .NET coverage tools market is not a young one anymore, it suffers from no real market dynamics (price points changing), and you're really sitting yourself right into it.. That's all I'm saying. Don't want to sound aggressive, again. After all, still big fan and yes, this tool is needed. As the two alternatives maybe are, sadly saying that, in the future.

So in closing: great product, just _please_ don't slam the door for people who want to continue using it (meaning 1.41 should stay free, like the NCover situation). Otherwise I sadly can't introduce it into my company. And I'm still a firm beliver of the freemium model. Just sayin'.

Hannes Kochniß

10/2/2012 8:16:45 PM #

After all, to reiterate my point, a "or I'll drop the product" would of yourse be a kneejerk reaction. Noone wants that. Just I think it could be 10-20% cheaper, OR introduce 2 products (Normal and Pro) version) which would probably already fix the most problems. That's what I meant by "reconsider". A bit more choice.

After all: I'm following you (even twitter and HerdinCode podcast) since some time.. I really like the vision you have and that you pulled through so long. I will also buy the product anyway. I just see adoption rate of the product (out of some weird "make the world a better place" view) as really important, and I think you can still get the same money out of it if you had freemium or a second product version at a lower point.

As this is my last post for a while, I want to make sure I get that across: .NEt landscape needs it badly. That's why I care about adoption rate in the future. But after all: great product, please keep going, in whatever way.

Remco

10/3/2012 6:59:23 AM #

I think that we're more or less on the same page here.  I won't go through the motions of comparing product features between NCrunch and other tools - By mentioning at all, I was just trying to make a point.  Around the time that your original comment was posted, there was a big push of many people comparing the price with R#, and I felt many people were missing the big picture.

Anyway, I agree with you that $289 isn't a bargain bin price, and most likely it will make NCrunch inaccessible for many people lacking access to this kind of money or lacking the justification to spend it.  But factoring in the market size, effort involved and value brought, I feel it is a fair price.  From my own personal tally of positive reactions vs negative reactions, a wide majority of people agree that it is fair price.  Most of those that disagree seem to have expectations more in the $50-100 mark, which would make a tool like NCrunch economically unviable.

I do feel the pain regarding the need to make the world a better place.  In this industry, we've all been tangled with rubbish quality code for far too long, and nothing made me happier than the fact that I'd managed to design a tool that could make a positive impact and really make people think about the quality of their code - and be more productive for doing it.  By putting up price barriers I do realise that I'm hindering this adoption.  I'm hindering the change that we all so badly need to make.  I'm making it harder for new developers to get on board with practices that will make the world a better place to live in.  Believe me, this isn't something I'm happy about at all.

But the unfortunate reality is that this is a very small market.  There are others that have built tools with very similar objectives to NCrunch and have failed to stay afloat for the simple reason that there just aren't many developers that are interested in continuous testing.  A freemium model requires a certain size of market in order for paying users to carry the weight of  free ones, and my own observations are that the current market for NCrunch is not of this size.

To reiterate from my last blog post, the motive behind commercialising NCrunch is so that the project can continue to survive.  I've had to face an unfortunate reality of:
1. Find a way to get enough money to finance NCrunch V2
2. Get a haircut, and get a real job

Consider that the current version of NCrunch barely does even 30% of what I'd currently like it to in the long term.  The remaining 70% is sitting in a list of objectives half a mile long, and they're all possible and all within reach if enough people are prepared to buy licenses.  The 30% of this concept that is implemented has been enough to significantly change the way that many people develop software.  Just imagine what the 70% will bring.  This is the big deal.  This is why I'm prepared to risk lower adoption of the product.  Because if I don't get the chance to see that 70% happen, then I'm convinced that everyone loses big time.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts.  I appreciate both your honesty and your intentions.  And thanks for supporting NCrunch by offering to buy a license

Remco

10/1/2012 6:48:51 PM #

Hi Sils -

The upgrade policy will include a free upgrade to any major revision released within 6 months of the license purchase.  There'll also be an 'upgrade' license available that will allow you to move up to a later version for a lower price (I'm thinking probably a 30-50% discount).

The personal license is suited to individuals for both personal and professional purposes, so if you like, you can purchase a personal license under your own name and then use it for your work within the company.  There aren't any constraints on what kind of work you do with the license, only on the name of the purchaser (i.e. if it's a company name, it needs to be a company seat).

Thanks for your post!

Remco

sils

10/1/2012 9:24:48 PM #

Thanks for the response.   Keep up the great work!

Remco

10/1/2012 6:50:37 PM #

Hi David -

I totally understand.  I've done my best to explain my reasoning in the reply to Hannes' post.  I wish you all the best in your dealings with your line manager, and I hope you'll watch this space closely.

Remco

10/1/2012 8:34:18 PM #

A number of people are asking after this one, and I am listening   For NCrunch V1 I'm going to try to keep things simple with just the flat scheme - more because it keeps things much easier from a sales perspective than for any financial reason.  I'll review this later down the line as the support patterns for the commercial version become clearer.  I recognise that support costs are likely lower when licenses are purchased in volume, so be assured that I'll be doing a full assessment of whether this makes sense for future versions.

Remco

10/2/2012 3:30:38 PM #

I think I understand why you posted this, although I hope I managed to make my point about why comparisons between NCrunch and Resharper are very much like comparing apples and oranges.  I'm aware that Jetbrains have different pricing options for their products.  To start picking apart price options would always boil down to comparing features between the tools, which I feel would be a useless and destructive discussion.  NCrunch isn't priced like Resharper.  Indeed, neither are any of the other products listed above.

Remco

10/3/2012 6:14:41 AM #

Hi Azzlack,

Thanks for this comment! You've made my morning

I usually publish changelogs with every release, although as 1.42 is still a work in progress I can't yet 100% confirm what will be in it.  I can, however, say that there aren't any fixes planned for this release that involve changes in test behaviour.

There are some subtle differences with the way that NCrunch executes tests that can sometimes cause them to behave unexpectedly.  If you haven't already, I really recommend having a read of the test troubleshooting guide in the Wiki.  If you can post some information about the failing tests in the support forum, I'll help you with getting them up and running

Cheers,

Remco