On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Terry Harris<terry.harris@iname.com> wrote:
> If you were in a position to buy 100k+ parts a year a sales rep would throw
> free compilers at you if he thought it would help, but, the cost of a
> compiler would be trivial to you anyway.
>
> I got free tools from Lattice for several years for a single design win for
> probably less than 200 parts total, but, it was in what they considered an
> important company.

I have been through this, with my company (not personal projects)
several times, and I have not been able to get free software dev
tools, even from vendors we buy a considerable quantity of parts from.
They insist on nickel and dime-ing that $400 or so out of us for some
reason. Does $400 matter to us? No, not really, it's more the hassle
of having to place an order, wait for the CDs to arrive, and then keep
renewing the license, buy more copies when we need additional seats,
etc. That ends up costing, easily, $5K worth of people's time each
year.

>
> Giving away a fully optimising compiler to someone who can't afford it
> today in the hope that tomorrow they will be buying thousands of parts and
> buying them from you and not your competitor is a long shot IMO.
>
> When I look at posts on the Microchip forum half the people you are giving
> compilers to still won't be able to design a circuit or write a working
> program tomorrow never mind buy thousands of parts.

If you took the time to write the compiler in the first place and keep
it updated, for the sake of the 100k+ customers, then there is no
additional cost to giving it away to anyone else. You don't have to
provide them with technical service for it - that can be fee-based (or
based on order quantity).


Sean

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