Y do nigerians shell out up to N100k+ for phones/phablets
and upto N300k+ for computers
(macbook/imacs) and do so smiling. And do so every so often (1-3 yr interval) but want software of almost anykind for free.
Infact,software devs gat no respect.
Can u list your mobile app in k's?
(1k,2k watabout 5k? )
. Can u sell ur software for N500k?
As a commodity- d way imacs are sold - and not as a bespoke product?
Other professionals dont think as hard as coders do yet they get respect and big bucks for their wrk.
Those makg anykind of sales of mobile apps hav to do so @ gutter prices (N100/200!. N500 is TOO EXPENSIVE. It will soon drop to N50 if not N20) but the hardware runng this software is thousands of naira+.
Can d developer pay rent,fuel a gen/generate electricity and buy data plan and hav enuff leftover @ tht rate.
The wrld runs on software, IT companies are raking in billions of dollars in revenue every year. Life is better with software but
every1 now expects paid software to b free or dirt cheap no matter how advanced it is.
Moreover this expectation is becomg entrenched. Even rotten tomatoes is more expensive thn software.

Can Nigerian Devs change d situation or is this d price to pay for partakg in an unregulated non-strait-jacket,no-degree required profession? Where any thing u need to get strted with is freely available(compilers,editors,ide,etc)

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nigerians would rather see ads scattered all over your software than pay for it.

Bread - N250 (regular loaf)
Bread - N400 (better loaf)
Bread - N1000 (rich loaf-sold out within a few hours!)
value last a few minutes (as long as u can eat it)

buyers buy bread evry d 2-3 days.
phone app?
N1k - nobody buyg
- valuespan (endless)
- buyers pay once
or until next upgrade

cars
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2m+
lifespan - 10yrs+
buyer wishes to change cars every 4/5 yrs
buyers take out loan,borrow to buy.
Cars sold as commodities.
Millions sold evry year
some buyers buy more thn 1.

Software
---------------
asking price: 1m+
buyer frowns deeply.
U tell him it has super features : he dont wanna hear it.
Tell him car has feature x,he stops and listens.

Phone calls:
-----------------
Atleast , N3k/yr spent on recharg
valuespan: 1 yr

Lol.

But seriously, if your software does something valuable to the customer, the customer will pay as long as there's no cheaper substitute. If the customer can do without it, he will. Developers should build apps to solve a real problem, not build apps to fill up portfolio.

guy software is more expensive it depends on how you present it. and what it does. by the way you dont sell software you license it for a period of time

I think beacause is hardware is more showy and can be presentable. Software on the other hand, has always been free to some people.

That's because people can see hardware. Why would a Nigerian pay for something he can't see huh?

Software that has value (solves problem that non other solves or solves it better) would sell. But since the major investment for software is mostly intellect/time (not necessarily cash in most cases) almost anyone can afford to make software. The result is that there are so many software out there doing the same thing or at least claiming to do the same thing. With so much competition, the prices come down. Some get so desperate and after so much frustration to sale (as there are so many options for the buyers), they begin to give off their software for free, just to prove that they are good at what they do hoping to build loyalty hoping to reap from the good will in the future. Everyday there is someone out there who reduces his price or even gives off for free with such hope. So that those who have built the good will and proven themselves would still be competing to sell against free software. You know what, free often has an edge. With this scenario especially in Nigeria where people mostly use pirated software they got for N150 or N200 people tend to think that is the real value of software. But they know that anyone selling a new Samsung S5 for N30,000 must be a thief.

So in the end, it would need your software to have a serious edge over others by being significantly better and good customer support for you to have a break.

The truth is, if you are good at what you do, it's only a matter of time, you will make it. Others are making it. For instance my coy has a software product that is competing against so many others in the field. But more than half of our existing clients are those who abandoned another product for ours and they are paying even higher than the one they abandoned.

Software pays if you are good and you are solving a problem that bothers many. The more the number affected by the problem and the more the challenge the problem poses, the better the chance of selling a good solution for the problem.

A computer manufacturer in the UK told Bill gated back in the 60s that he cannot pay for what is not tangible (software). He later had to pay exorbitantly to keep himself in the PC market. So long as your software has value, just be patient. They will come running. Like someone said earlier, license your software and make it available then wait for the results.

Correct observation!

@uken
i disagree on some counts with d rationale software devs use to get an edge in d market.
Software dev takes time and intellect. It can take huge amounts of time so any developer tryg to edge out d competition by sellg dirt cheap is actually runng @ a loss and this inability to actually estimate d prodction of their prodcts is wat is undermng d software industry.
Lawyers , architects, accountants also prodce information prdcts but fare better.
E.g a developer spends 500hrs or 6 months creatg software. @ $50 an hr thats a whooping $25k prodct on his hands. At N1k/hr thts a N500k prodct on his hands.
If he doesnt recover his prodction cost he's run @ a loss.
Big software companies know and operate ths way. So i think d indie software market has been eroded by developers who dnt value and respect themselves enuff or their prodcts.
On d market being flooded,it is also flooded for car manufacturers also and laptop makers also but they settle for variable prices never for near nothg.
E.g high end laptops begin from $1k+. Hoverg around $1.5k and
customers actually call a less thn $1k lappie cheap! A $400/500 lappie isnt expected to b of very decent quality. But in most cases feature rich software isnt expected to b high priced . because many devs are rushg to giv away feature rich prodcts. The developers attracted d contempt d non-software world now has for them. It's their fault.

That's African mentality,they cherish what they see and not what they can't see. its also depends on the level of our technology,everybody wants to use ipad,ipone,bb but don't want to know how it was been developed to do the amazing works it does

asalimpo: @uken
i disagree on some counts with d rationale software devs use to get an edge in d market.
Software dev takes time and intellect. It can take huge amounts of time so any developer tryg to edge out d competition by sellg dirt cheap is actually runng @ a loss and this inability to actually estimate d prodction of their prodcts is wat is undermng d software industry.
Lawyers , architects, accountants also prodce information prdcts but fare better.
E.g a developer spends 500hrs or 6 months creatg software. @ $50 an hr thats a whooping $25k prodct on his hands. At N1k/hr thts a N500k prodct on his hands.
If he doesnt recover his prodction cost he's run @ a loss.
Big software companies know and operate ths way. So i think d indie software market has been eroded by developers who dnt value and respect themselves enuff or their prodcts.
On d market being flooded,it is also flooded for car manufacturers also and laptop makers also but they settle for variable prices never for near nothg.
E.g high end laptops begin from $1k+. Hoverg around $1.5k and
customers actually call a less thn $1k lappie cheap! A $400/500 lappie isnt expected to b of very decent quality. But in most cases feature rich software isnt expected to b high priced . because many devs are rushg to giv away feature rich prodcts. The developers attracted d contempt d non-software world now has for them. It's their fault.

Hey I'm not supporting what is happening. I'm only giving my own observation/explanation to what is going on. I'm a developer and I believe being cheap is not doing any good. But that's the reality and we have to face it. But one can still make it. You just have to be exceptional.

For instance, we have a school management software (Prisec School Manager) and we face stiff competition just like every other product out there. I've even seen guys on Nairaland offering school management software for about 20k only. That amount can't even cover our cost of providing support for one school. Ours is not cheap. But we are able to sell even to some schools that already had another software solution. When they compared the cheaper school management software they are using to what we are offering, they dumped the other to get ours. There's even one client who had initially chosen another product because it was cheaper, but after a term, they dumped it and got ours. And there is one product that is exactly the same price as ours, which a client dumped and another client that was also dumping a product received proposals for our product along with a proposal for the same other product (which is promoted by a publishing giant whose books are used by virtually all schools in the country), but the client went for our product.

There would always be cheap software and free ones. But when you are good at what you do, you will still sale. That is the point I'm making. You just forget about the cheap products and do your thing. Clients who understand the idea of getting value for their money would understand that a good product is worth paying for.

But who says making hardware doesn't involve a lot of intellectual work?

The problem goes beyond mobile platform. Most office users of Excel and Word have no idea of how much the software they use are worth. They even see Windows XP, Windows 7, & co. as obstacle that an IT guy must stand by them to conquer. We don't pay for software so have no regard for them.

Yes. Piracy is a real problem but that's a different discussion. If your software has been pirated then its because you have a high selling software. The base line is if your software isn't worth paying for, nobody will pay for it. If your software is too expensive, nobody will pay for it.