Archives for October 2010

Did 37Signals Increase BaseCamp Price or Not? The Backdoor Experiment.

Posted on October 29, 2010 ·

There’s a debate going on about 37Signal’s “hidden” “unannounced” price increase of their popular Basecamp service.

Apparently most of the uproar wasn’t so much due to the price hike itself, but the fact that it happened without any announcement.

Cinovate Cinovate Cloud Inn.

Why did 37 Signal’s Basecamp price double unannounced? http://bit.ly/bLan2a Contact Cinovate for a Force.com based Basecamp killer app.

canadatechnews Canada Tech Eqentia

Why did 37 Signal’s Basecamp price double unannounced? http://eqent.me/caOkNV

TechvibesTO TechvibesTO

Why did 37 Signal’s Basecamp price double unannounced? http://ht.ly/19GKlt

22 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Not everyone agrees:

@benkepes Ben Kepes

If people have a problem with #BaseCamp #37Signals pricing they have two options, shut up or move on. No big deal cc/ @jasonfried

Hm. I guess STFU is an answer, too. On the other hand, competitors are ready to take advantage of the situation:

mikeerickson Mike Erickson

If you dont like the #basecamp price hike, check out #teambox!

bluecamroo BlueCamroo

Don’t like #basecamp price rise? Try #BlueCamroo. Project Management and Social CRM with Twitter from $24.99 p.m. http://bit.ly/c68rkR

Zoho (longtime CloudAve sponsor) even offered a conversion tool: BUMP. (not to be mixed up with the iPhone / Android BUMP)

But 37Signals Founder Jason Fried came back with a surprising statement:

This isn’t accurate. We have not raised prices. Our prices have been steady for years. Max is still $149. Premium is still $99. Plus is still $49. Basic is still $24. Free is still free. Same prices as last week, last month, last quarter, last year, two years before that, etc. Each plan has the exact same levels and features and projects and disk space as before.

So who is right? And more importantly, where is the $24 Basic Plan?

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Software · Tagged: 37signals, CloudAve, marketing, pricing, project management, transparency, zoho

Software Marketing Pranks

Posted on October 26, 2010 ·

I envy software marketing types. They get to stay kids forever: pull pranks and even get paid for it.:-)

Today’s example comes courtesy of TechCrunch: PayPal competitor WePay dropped a 600lbs ice block at the entrance of the Paypal developer conference. They got chased away and Moscone security removed the ice block. My question: who gets the money? Those are real dollar bills in the ice…

But don’t for a minute think it’s only at startup-land where 20-somethings rule.. the enterprise gray-hairs like pranks, too. Below are some gems from the past.

NetSuite raining on Sage‘s parade conference:

NetSuite is quite a regular at competitor conferences, see their trucks at SAP’s annual SAPPHIRE conference:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Marketing / PR · Tagged: box.net, CloudAve, conferences, edgy marketing, Great Plains, Just for fun, marketing, microsoft, netsuite, oracle, paypal, salesforce.com, sap, sharepoint, siebel, zoho

HP Slate 500–Big Yawn.

Posted on October 22, 2010 ·

I love my iPad. I hate my iPad. Was preparing to dump it for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, until it turned out to be a 7”-er now. Size matters, after all (or is it just my eyes?).

So I got momentarily excited reading about the HP Slate 500 but that was a short moment. The new business-focused device is based on Windows 7. Now, as a former victim of Vista I’ll be the first one to admit that Windows 7 is a stable, good operating system. For the PC. It’s just not meant for a tablet. Even if you call it a slate. The proof comes at the 27th second of this engadget video (the best part of which is the leading commercial. The kids are cute)