Business of Software Blog

The Pirate's Dilemma: a video of Matt Mason's talk

Matt's thesis is that piracy can be a good thing. Pirates are bellwethers, flagging the existence of emerging markets. Rather than fighting them, we should consider competing, or even co-operating, with them.

Here's Matt Mason talking about the Pirate's Dilemma at last month's conference:

 

It was extremely well received at the conference and it's well worth a listen. You can find out more at Matt's excellent blog.

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Your code is crap: a video of Alberto's talk

At last month's conference, Alberto Savoia gave a great talk about crappy code, what it is and how to avoid it. Alberto is a wonderful speaker with a lot to say (90% of the conference attendees gave his talk 4 or 5 stars).

Here's the video:

 

You can read an interview with Alberto here:

http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/09/alberto-savoia-.html

And visit the crap4j home page:

http://www.crap4j.org

Enjoyed Alberto's talk? Then register your interest in Business of Software 2008.

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A carpenter, some potato eaters and software development

In 1880, at the age of 27, our protagonist decides to become an artist. He has already tried, and abandoned, the careers of art dealer, lay minister, school teacher and book seller.

This is one of his first drawings, of a carpenter:

5 years later, our protagonist is on the way to mastering his craft. He paints these potato eaters:

4 years, and over 2000 drawings later, he paints this:

There are some interesting parallels with software development here. Here are a couple. One fairly obvious, one less so:

• van Gogh had to master his craft before he became an artist. He spent years perfecting his techniques and copying other painters before painting any significant works. Software development is a creative process as well. You too will need to copy, try and fail, and eventually master the fundamental techniques before you can produce your masterpiece.


• Put the 27 year old van Gogh in a sketch-off with me and there's no way that you could tell from our drawings that he would end up one of the most influential and famous artists of the past 200 years and that I was destined for eternal mediocrity. The same thing holds for software developers. If you're faced with two untrained, wannabe software developers then you have no way of distinguishing van Gogh from the muppet.

What do you think? Post here ...

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Art quiz

Bear with me here. This will turn out to be relevant to the business of software. I'll explain later on in the week.

Have a look at this drawing of a carpenter:

Pretty average, bordering on poor, right? The hands are all wrong, the skull's been chopped off, it doesn't look quite right.

So who do you reckon drew it? Post here ...

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Copy protection

In the late 1980s I bought a game for my Acorn Archimedes. It came on a floppy disk and was shipped with a piece of laminated card printed with a 10x10 grid of coloured cells. To run the game I had to insert the floppy disk and type in the colour of the cell at a given, random position. Floppy disks, bits of coloured card, dongles daisy-chained four deep into the printer ports, funny plastic lenses: this was the state of copy protection back in the 1980s. Did it stop people cracking games? No. Did it piss users off? Yes. Unfortunately, although the mechanisms are different now, the result is often still the same.

Much copy protection is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption. Obviously, the point of copy protection is to stop people copying your software. Obvious, but wrong. The point of copy protection is to maximise the amount of money that you, the vendor, make from your software.

These two goals are not aligned, as a simple thought experiment shows. Imagine you've written an application that can decode any encrypted message. You've spent years perfecting the algorithm. You're protected by patents and you've obfuscated your code but you're worried that your customers will copy your application and not pay you. You devise a fool-proof, dongle-based copy-protection system. The Pentagon hear about your software and want to buy it. They'll pay you $250,000 a copy and want 1,000 copies. You're happy: your copy protection will stop the Pentagon from stealing from you. You dream of retiring to the Caribbean, a multi-millionaire. Unfortunately, the Pentagon have an anti-dongle policy. You refuse to budge. What if they bought 1,000 licences but installed the software on 2,000 machines? You'd lose millions. They don't buy. You end up with nothing and end up burnt out and penniless.

Here's another story. Say you're selling software at $500 a seat. Alice downloads a free trial of your software. She tries it, it's not for her. She doesn't buy. You've made no money.

Bob also downloads your software. He tries your software, and likes it. Your only copy protection is a nag screen encouraging people to buy. Hitting the 'remind me later' button is easier than opening his wallet, so Bob doesn't buy either. You've made no money.

Charles downloads your software. He tries it, and likes it. His trial expires. He could try to get round the copy protection system, or search for a warez site, but he's an honest man so he gets out his credit card and buys. You've made $500.

David downloads your software. He tries it, and likes it. His trial expires. David is a student. He thinks that charging for software is evil. No way will he pay $500 for it. He spends a couple of hours cracking your software and gets it for free. You've made no money.

Out of the four people who tried out your software, there are only two interesting cases. Alice and David are never going to buy: Alice, because she doesn't want the software, and David because he wants it but will never pay for it. You want to make Bob behave like Charles. All you need to do is to make it easier to buy than not to buy. There is no point in worrying about the Davids of this world. And David might even grow up one day, get a job, and actually buy a copy.

You might not even need copy protection. If Alice is your typical user then you need to fix your software. If you're just starting out then your biggest problem isn't people not paying for your software. It's that they don't want to buy it. Either your software doesn't fit people's needs or you're not able to tell enough people about it. Don't spend time and money on copy protection: spend it on product development and marketing instead.

In real life, users are on a continuum. At one end lie those who are honest to a fault: people who've actually paid for a WinZip licence. On the other are those who will crack software they don't even want, just to prove a point. Most of us lie somewhere in the middle. The point of your copy protection system should be to encourage us, the honest but imperfect and lazy users, to buy without pissing us off.

Do you use copy protection? How draconian is it? Post here ...

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Google Branding

At last week's conference, Dan Nunan told a story of how some bozo had claimed that if somebody built a better search engine then people would switch from Google in an instant. Some Silicon Valley start-up could do to Google what Google did to Alta Vista. Since that bozo was me, I think I'd better justify myself.

Dan's point is that Google is much more than an algorithm. It's a brand. We use Google for the same reason we eat at McDonalds or Starbucks: it delivers a guaranteed, consistent experience whenever we use it, wherever we use it. And it's not just about the physical experience: we identify with brands and their values. The brands we eat, drink and wear are symbols we use to communicate to others in our tribe.

Starbucks vs Peets, Coca Cola vs Pepsi, Dasani vs Evian. These are battles fought over brands, not substance. Brew a better coffee, create a better fizzy drink or produce better water and you will not dent these brands' dominance. And it's not just about marketing: even Virgin Cola, backed by Richard Branson's flair for marketing and publicity, failed to hurt Coke or Pepsi.

With commodities, brand beats product. In Seattle, I came across two neighbouring coffee shops. One was Starbucks, one was a local one-off cafe. The local one sold better coffee, had better service and was empty. The Starbucks sold worse coffee, had worse service and was full.

Dan's thesis is that Google's dominance is based on more than technology. Even if search becomes commoditized (is Google really technically much better than Ask or Live?), Google's strength is its brand. We're familiar with it, we trust it and we won't switch, the same way we won't switch from Coke to Virgin Cola or from Windows to BeOS.

I'm not sure I agree though. Our interactions with search engines are too fleeting to build a significant bond we're reluctant to break. My choice of clothes, music or fizzy drink might say something about me, but does my choice of search engine? The ease of switching is high, and the costs and risks low. If I change the coffee I drink, the clothes that I wear or the music I listen to then I risk drinking bad coffee, looking stupid in ill-fitting clothes or making a fool of myself in front of my peers. I use Google maybe 30 times a day. That's 200 times a week I have a chance to surreptitiously flirt with Live over Google. It's not that embarrassing and nobody will ever know if it doesn't work.

So I have the means to switch (it's free), and I have the opportunity (200 times a week). All I need is the motive. If somebody built a better search engine maybe the world wouldn't beat a path to their door, but I for one would try it. And if it were better, I'd switch.

Would you?

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