Dear Rob & confocalists,
 
As a manufacturer of software for the microscopic community, I'd like to react
on your statement that we (the developers) insure our survival by peddling
'maintenance': it is true.
All hard- and software companies try to create a steady-state cash flow by
selling some sort of 'maintenance'. And if this maintenance consists of nothing
or a recompile of the software for a new operating system version (a good
developer just pushes the 'make' button and fetches more coffee) charching in
the order of 10% of the list price per year is definitely too much.
However, in most cases, and certainly in the case if you happen to own a copy
of our image restoration software, you get a substantial amount of new
functionality for you money. For instance, in the case of the Huygens System
you would have gotten in the past year:
-A toolbox to measure your microscope's point spread function.
-A new restoration algorithm optimized for very noisy confocal images.
-A noise-aware ratio imaging tool.
-A host of 'trivia' like a 3D object labelling tool, bug fixes and the like.
We think this is real value for your 10% maintenance money!
 
>I'd like to see this issue discussed for the most part on the list.  I too
>have been really horrified at the costs of a 3-D system that is not a toy.
>It seems that one must invest around $us50-100K (inclusive of hardware) to
Although I'm not sure of US prices, I would say that you would be able to get
an Imaris (Bitplane A.G., http://www.bitplane.ch)/Huygens combination and a
decent SGI Indy to run it on for _substantially_ less than $us50k.
>get into the game, then shell out an additional 5-10K annually for
>"maintenance".  How software requires maintenance is beyond me - apparently
>it involves developers insuring their existance by increasing program
>functionality in truly trivial amounts (for those that pay the fees), then
>simply declaring the old version of the software for dead every 18 months
>(for those that don't pay the fees).  This smacks a bit of extortion, and
>I'd be happy to learn of suppliers who do not subscribe to this philosophy.
>Rob Palmer
>Ctr Env Biotech
>
Hans van der Voort
 
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dr. Hans T.M. van der Voort ([log in to unmask])
Scientific Volume Imaging BV,
J. Geradtsweg 181,
1222 PS Hilversum, The Netherlands.
 
URL: http://www.svi.nl/
 
tel: (0)35-6859405 or (0)653-345445
fax: (0)35-6837971