What a deal?!? – software prices

We are working on a software project here for our partner organization. One of the things that is funny to me is that to develop software you need other kinds of software. And that software can sometimes be very expensive.

We put together a list of the various software that we either need right now or will need in the next 3-4 months for this project. The retail total came to over $22,000. I about fell off my chair, and those of you who know me know that would not be a pretty sight.

We began poking around and found out we can buy most of the software we need through our non-profit status in the US, and the total we would have to pay. . . . . a whopping $4000. That is a lot better than $22,000, but when you don’t have the $4000 either, it still leaves you short. Hard to believe how expensive a single disk is that has a bunch of 1s and 0s on it.

On a cool note though, I decided to try to see if I could get some of these companies to donate their products to us. I sent a few emails and so far got one reply with some questions about what we do, etc. After an email or two back and forth I was told they were going to donate a copy of the Professional version (about $300 worth) of their product to us for free. They not only did that, but sent us an international express box with some cool t-shirts and a reference book (worth another couple hundred probably) for use with their product. Thanks Yohai and Shiry. You guys are great.