Evan Boardman: What if you lose your sight? What if...what if...,what if....
What if you lose your sight? What if...what if...,what if....
IF a Butterfly lost it's wings ... Would it be a Butterwalk?
Schezic, you're way too happy with Windows8. Calm down!
lol
DMB: Schezic, you're way too happy with Windows8. Calm down!
I'm working hard to make sure we don't go out of business. :-)
But if we do, Mitchell is right: Another company/group would find our very large customer base to be worth maintaining / buying rights to the code / licenses / etc.
Worst case, some open-source project / team would probably emerge to hack the DRM and support the system moving forward -- as long as their was a substantial user base. Your biggest risk would be a product with a small customer base; large customer bases seem to survive and support themselves even if the entire business infrastructure disappears. It's hard to think of any 20th century brand / technology / platform that doesn't have a community collecting / supporting / documenting it.
I assume most of this has been covered but i never saw it a lll in one post but was skimming quickly. Logos is out of business …. you still own ever work, and while you may need to use an emulator to run windows 8 on your windows 20 computer it will still work. Mobile apps of course will be frozen where you had them (no new features or ability to download other books. I have some orphaned software, like my New Oxford annotated Library I keep a copy of MacOS 8 on my computer to run it and a couple other Apps. I do not lose the investment of buying it only the ability to use it on my modern mac has meant i need legacy stuff to keep it running. People never lose the ownership of items only the functionality of the internet related items. If Logos 7 requires you to access things from the net in order to do anything, yes then there might be an issue but there are plenty of areas out there where people have little to no connectivity and I doubt Logos would ever be foolish enough to make things completely dependant on the internet. I was amazed to hear a famous person (some actress) talk about how she and her husband refuse to have wifi in their home, their children complain but she wants their home a quiet spot, if they need on the internet they go to the family computer. I personally have wifi but no cell service.
-Dan
St. Jerome's House † Install
Bob Pritchett: I'm working hard to make sure we don't go out of business. :-) But if we do, Mitchell is right: Another company/group would find our very large customer base to be worth maintaining / buying rights to the code / licenses / etc. Worst case, some open-source project / team would probably emerge to hack the DRM and support the system moving forward -- as long as their was a substantial user base. Your biggest risk would be a product with a small customer base; large customer bases seem to survive and support themselves even if the entire business infrastructure disappears. It's hard to think of any 20th century brand / technology / platform that doesn't have a community collecting / supporting / documenting it.
Thanks for explaining your position Bob. I know that Logos has a large customer base. Could you give some current stats of just how large that base is? e.g. total Logos accounts, total Logos paying customers etc.? I asked this same question on another thread recently but thought it would be worth asking here since the topic is currently being discussed.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
Bob Pritchett: It's hard to think of any 20th century brand / technology / platform that doesn't have a community collecting / supporting / documenting it.
It's hard to think of any 20th century brand / technology / platform that doesn't have a community collecting / supporting / documenting it.
Hostess
Logos Series X Pastor’s Library | Logos 3 Leader’s Library | Logos 4 Portfolio | Logos 5 Platinum | Logos 6 Feature Crossgrade | Logos 7 Essential Upgrade - Large | Logos 8 Methodist & Wesleyan Platinum and Academic Professional
Schezic: Evan Boardman: What if you lose your sight? What if...what if...,what if.... Have Y'all pondered this concept?: IF a Butterfly lost it's wings ... Would it be a Butterwalk?
Bruce Dunning:Could you give some current stats of just how large that base is? e.g. total Logos accounts, total Logos paying customers etc.?
I bet the "competition" would love to see those stats and peek under the hood.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
It seems digital books are the future so it strengthens Logos's future. Libraries are shedding entire rooms of books to make digital media centers where students can use their electronic devices. I have the IPad and just bought the iPad mini and my library runs exclusively off those. I could never see myself using a desktop computer to read which is why I got logos only a year ago. If Apple or Amazon go out of business I am also out since I have so many paid or Kindle volumes.
Schezic: IF a Butterfly lost it's wings ... Would it be a Butterwalk?
Of course :)
Scott E. Mahle:Hostess
Actually, some good news. Hostess has tons of interest from potential buyers and will likely be back in some form:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34227_162-57556264/hostess-says-it-has-over-100-interested-buyers/
I think this is just one example that demonstrates what Bob and Mitchell were saying. Once an entity reaches a certain level of critical mass with customers, there are valuable assets which continue to exist even if the company fails. Those assets are usually bought by a competitor or another other interested party that can monetize them. Worst case (or possibly best case?), a dedicated user group keeps things going.
When I began switching from physical books to Logos, this was the bet I made (just like the bet I made with my growing library of Amazon Kindle books). It seemed that, in the not-terribly-likely event that Logos went under, the platform would be attractive for a buyer because:
1) There is a large, dedicated group of users, many of which have made substantial investments in the products (thousands or tens of thousands of dollars each). These user have also made a substantial investment of time into learning the software and understanding how the company does business. When they are unhappy about something Logos does or doesn't do, customers are much more likely to make loud complaints (sometimes very loud!) than to just abandon their Logos library and switch to a competitor.
2) The investment which Logos has made in building a library of thousands of linked resources is valuable in itself and, to the best of my knowledge, would not be easy for a competitor to cheaply replicate. This network effect is an incentive for customers to own all their resources in Logos rather than purchasing some resources with Logos and others with competitors.
However, while I am pretty comfortable with my Logos investment at the moment, if I was had to list my potential concerns for the future, they would be as follows:
1) Successful technology companies have a nasty tendency of becoming "lame" following many years of success and growth. There are a number of reasons why this happens, but I think one of the main causes is that CEOs often fail to protect the strong corporate cultures responsible for their initial successes. Hiring gets sloppy and new sub-par employees are then brought on board. These sub-par employees drive away or distract good employees, create lower quality products, treat customers poorly, make bad business decisions, and generally ruin things for everyone. And make no mistake - when you're growing fast, it's very, very, very easy to go this route if the CEO is not extremely conscious of how easily all this can happen. Fortunately, this tendency can be significantly less likely for well-run privately-held companies like Logos in contrast to venture capital backed startups or public companies. Additionally, my impression is that Bob is pretty focused on hiring and maintaining the culture at Logos. However, Bob won't live forever (at least not in this life), so let's hope and pray that he effectively selects and grooms the next generation of Logos management and employees, and that whomever ownership of the company passes to shares his values.
2) With any technology, there is always the risk that another unforeseen competitive technology appears and massively disrupts things. So far, I think Logos has been pretty smart about seeing where things were headed (e.g. mobile, cloud-based). However, I always worry that they'll miss a big one and end up with a product that is significantly inferior to what is offered by competitors. I don't know just what these next technologies will be, but if history is any guide, they are definitely coming.
3) There is always the risk that someone makes a much cheaper way for publishers and content creators to bypass a platform like Logos and deliver their product more directly to their customers. Now for a very specialized type of product based on Bible content, I think this would be less likely. However, what if the major publishers one day agree to an industry standard for Bible content and form a jointly owned entity that delivers it all electronically, hence bypassing Logos? I don't see this as very likely, as I suspect it would be difficult for all those publishers to successfully cooperate on such a venture. Furthermore, Logos does seem to provide them a lot of value right now, as well as deliver other features which they might not be interested in building. However, if the publishers see their profits under enough pressure and/or there were to be significant consolidation amongst the major players, something like this could always be a possibility.
So I'll repeat that I'm pretty comfortable with my investment in Logos right now and appreciate all they do to keep the value of my investment intact. Relative to all the companies I deal with, I think the quality of their products and service is right up near (or at) the top. Sure, something unforeseen could always happen at Logos and I could end up losing what I invested into building my library. But overall, I think betting on Logos is a pretty solid bet to make.
Sogol: So I'll repeat that I'm pretty comfortable with my investment in Logos right now and appreciate all they do to keep the value of my investment intact. Relative to all the companies I deal with, I think the quality of their products and service is right up near (or at) the top. Sure, something unforeseen could always happen at Logos and I could end up losing what I invested into building my library. But overall, I think betting on Logos is a pretty solid bet to make.
Blessings in Christ.
Sogol, I really appreciate your thoughtful and thorough response. I totally agree with you.