I find this discussion very interesting, particularly some of the thoughts in the OP. I have mentioned elsewhere that I am a marketing manager for a non-music software development and marketing company. I too am struggling with ideas on how to retain our market lead and stop customers from drifting away to other products. I'm going to give that "lifetime free update" idea some more thought. Currently we only give support and upgrades to those that invest in a yearly support/maintenance agreement. The problem is that, without that extra income, can we afford to keep on the support and development staff?

As far as BB is concerned, I have mentioned in another thread that I believe upgrades should only be once a year. I believe the twice a year system does make one think carefully about whether there are sufficient features to make the upgrade worthwhile, especially in these really tough economic times. And I say that when Australia's economy is about the strongest in the world - according to the IMF anyway. Perhaps they should "come on down" and try it for themselves.

I think I would be prepared to pay a yearly support/maintenance fee to PG Music in exchange for getting every ‘update’ and ‘upgrade’ (there is a difference) plus all the new Styles, rather than paying individually for each upgrade.

There is one other marketing dilemma that I think PG Music have got with BB. There are their old customers who use BB for practicing, working up tunes, even the first steps in arranging. I put myself in that category and many of us are jazz freaks. But then there are those, the deadly duos etc., who use BB in live gig situations for backing tracks, or at least creating backing tracks. I am not sure that a single product is suitable for these two types of customer. Just a thought.

Grah Jive Talk
"Don't worry baby, they'll swing their arses off."