Buying Frenzy
June 19th, 2007Earlier this year I acquired two products which are now major elements of my product lineup: MarsEdit and Black Ink.
Since then, there seems to be a tone of acquisition in the air. I’m not sure if I can take any of the credit for prompting this, but it seems that anecodotally at least, my throwing dollars around has put the same idea into other independent developers’ heads.
Consider Scotty from Late Night Cocoa, who last month followed in my footsteps by acquiring two products: TrackTime and Event Maker. Scotty is a full-time Windows (mostly) consultant who realized that the fastest track to full-time development for the Mac might be to start with a couple of salable products.
News also came out earlier this month that Jesse Grosjean of Hog Bay Software had found a buyer for his Mori and Clockwork applications. Today we learn that the buyer is Alfonso Guerra, a friend of mine from #macsb who I met at the C4 Conference last year. No doubt at the C4 conference this year, I’ll be citing him as an example in my speech about acquisitions. :)
In almost, but not completely unrelated news – our beloved mythical Mac-monster, the Macalope, has also announced a bit of transacting. Selling out, in its own words, to CNET. I wish the Macalope luck in its new digs, though it’s going to cause quite a stir walking down 2nd Street with those horns.
Blogged from my iPhone. Psyche!
June 19th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I actually have so many ideas for new projects, that I am considering passing HoudahSpot on to someone else. Still haven’t made up my mind though…
June 19th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Blogged from my iPhone. Psyche!
Um…So, how’s that virtual keyboard? :-)
June 20th, 2007 at 11:28 am
They say that all publicity is good publicity but I am not so sure. The trouble with buying a product that is already for sale is keeping on selling it when there are bits of it you don’t like (see http://www.mamooba.com/node/32)
June 20th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Hey Scotty – sorry if you were trying to keep the attention down. I didn’t mean to pull a surprise customer attack on you :)
I think you’ll find that the customers who complain are the most gratified when you do fix things up. At least you got their attention!
And no matter how good the product is, there will always be things about it that are just “not your style.” I’ve found this with both MarsEdit and Black Ink, for instance. Things that I don’t feel comfortable with because it’s just not how I would have done it. I think this is pretty typical.