I don't see that the slope need be all that slippery. It makes good
business sense for Stata only to sell v8 software, since selling v7
software at a discount really would cut into sales of v8. V7 and v8 are
different enough that any user who can afford v8 documentation will buy
it. Hence, I doubt that inexpensive v7 documentation would cut greatly
into sales of v8 documentation. For group/student licenses where there
is only one v8 documentation set for the class, allowing students to
obtain their own v7 documentation would be a great benefit, and probably
would enhance the sales of group licenses to students. These students
are likely to become the new individual licensees of the future, which
is why Stata provides inexpensive student rates in the first place.
Bill Dupont
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Cox [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 3:59 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Another manual idea
Stata version 8 was the most drastic revision in the history
of Stata, and the manuals were reorganised with lots of new material.
Having said that, almost all of what is in Stata 7 still works. What you
wouldn't see documented in detail is documented on-line under the
various flavours of -help whatsnew-.
FWIW, I don't think that Stata Corp will do this, for all the usual
marketing and logistic reasons that old commercial software versions or
documentation do not, in general, remain available. Stata Corp, while
wanting to be nice to users, remains a hard-headed business. You only
have to imagine the slippery slope that has been started down. If v7
documentation cheap, why not v7 software cheap, v6 documentation and
software even cheaper, etc.? I am only guessing here, however.
Nick
[email protected]
Clive Nicholas replied to Bill Dupont:
> Not a bad idea at all, if the v7 and v8 manuals are generally
> congruent... :)
>
> > Has Stata Corp considered releasing version 7 manuals at
> little or no
> > cost? Perhaps pdf manuals could be provided to anyone
> with a valid
> > Stata7 or Stata8 license. I would guess that the
> commercial value of
> > Stata7 manuals today must be quite low, so Stata Corp
> would be giving up
> > very little revenue by distributing these manuals in this
> way. On the
> > other hand, there are many students throughout the world
> for whom the
> > cost of Stata8 manuals is high. Providing Stata7 manuals
> at little cost
> > might even increase overall Stata revenues by increasing the total
> > number of Stata users.
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