Why is LabVIEW 2009 SP1 not a free upgrade?

[Coq_Rouge]

A problem for NI have been that to many people have been happy with their current Labview version, so they have not upgraded. And Labview do not earn money on such customers. So I guess the marketing department in NI come up with this idea to launch a new version every year to increase the income. Ni like all other companies need to have some income in order to pay workers salary and do product R&D(even if much of this department have been moved to China). I am not sure how smart this plan is. But well this is the current situation and we have to live with it. A labview version will not expire the moment a new version is launched. So we as customers must look at the cost benefit numbers and decide what to do. Stay on the current version some time, upgrade via SSP etc. Or perhaps change to a text based programming language.  

[battler.]

Software for any company (LV for NI) has the biggest margins.  They don't need to manufacture any hardware, only print CD's.  The margin is very high for NI on LabVIEW (80%+?).  I know, I used to work there.

LV is a great program.  There are many potential users outside of the US whom don't realise how great it is.  Instead of stretching the profits made from existing users whom are passionate about LV (you only have to visit this forum to realise that) they should be finding new customers.

I think with the amount of bugs with LV witnessed since 7.1, NI risks losing it's credibility as a top-quality operator (which I was impressed with when I was there).

I realise that from a pure marketing perspective after version 8 they possibly had to move away from a naming convention which involved version numbers (i.e. 10, 11, 12).  They should try to release a new version every couple of years, not every year.

Perhaps in line with Rolf and others needs, they should have a cutting-edge version and a "tried and tested" version, and they need to support both.

[rolfk]

You seem to think that software is produced automatically by AI driven software programs that do not need office space, social security, salery and a few other things. Also the marketing and all the rest is all happening magically with no people involved.

I have been working at NI too, a long time ago and at that time LabVIEW and the other software was clearly not the thing NI made lots of money with. It was the means to sell their hardware, where they did have nice margins on. There might be some chances in this by now, (lower margins on hardware and probably some margin on software now) but I'm sure, the NI software developer group consisting of quite a few people, does not work for love of the great LabVIEW software alone 

Obviously selling LabVIEW does seem to make business sense to NI, but I still see it as a means to sell a lot of their hardware. NI does also have very unique hardware by now which probably would sell itself even without LabVIEW but it is the combo of NI hardware and LabVIEW that still sells the most.  

Message Edited by rolfk on 03-19-2010 09:40 AM

[battler.]

90% of LV users wouldn't know how to use a DAQ.

Rolf, I don't have to make things up in my head, these are the facts which NI management told us.  The margin on LV software is by far the greatest.

Hardware is merely a means to selling software.