No other question dominates discussions about the recent spate of ISDN-replacement technologies: How much will it cost?
Kevin Leach at ipDTL has tinkered with his subscription fee a little since the first release. SoundStreak offered their service at no cost for the longest time. Now that it’s out of Beta, it’s STILL free for talent…but costs for producers.
But Source-Connect has been either purposely coy about their pricing model for “NOW”, or still reading their marketplace barometer to determine the best competitive position.
When I interviewed Source-Element’s Rebekah Wilson at NAB, I pointedly asked about the price point for NOW, and the answer was “…wonderfully, amazingly affordable…” Encouraging, but inconclusive.
Yesterday, in an email exchange with Wilson, she authorized me to relay the following intriguing statement:
“…we at Source Elements feel honoured to have been supported by the community for the last 10 years. This has enabled us to become the preeminent alternative to ISDN and be instrumental in creating the market for ISDN alternatives in the first place. To thank the community that made this possible we’re considering making a professionally-useful version of Source-Connect Now free.
Barring any major revelations we intend to announce this officially in the next one to two weeks and would love to hear you and your reader’s thoughts on this…”
There you go. That seems to me to be a rather remarkable statement, and if true…could really heighten the competitive position of everyone contending in this space.
Wilson is openly asking for your comments and reaction.
What say you?
CourVO
Listen to my Commercial demo
Thanks Dave! It would be great Source Connect Now for free and I think it´s a good marketing strategy. Every voice talent with his own studio will use then SCN instead of Skype for directed recordings. Source Connect is a very good alternative to ISDN and many talents will know this amazing software.
Please let us know when announced officially.
Best regards from Madrid!
Sacha!
Lots of fluidity in this markektplace right now. SC making this move would put it under first consideration for a lot of people. We’ll see what shakes out in the end. Hope you are feeling better!
Thanks for commenting,
Dave Courvoisier
but the catch is, my guess anyway, that for higher res audio (48k+) or plugin for your DAW to work with it, their server audio capture is where you’ll have to pay.
I’m excited for this to be free and more so for the bigger outfits to adopt it but will be sad once anything other than very basic functionality reveals the TRUE charges.
Moose,
Clearly, they would offer “free” so you would come aboard, then offer some other value proposition for cost (that you would just HAVE to have!). Still, not a bad position in this highly-competitive marketplace.
best,
Dave Courvoisier
I think SoundStreak has it right! Free for talent, fees for producers. They could base the fee on a sliding scale or bulk rates.
Sean,
I love SoundStreak, and find their team to be very smart. You can’t write them out of this equation for sure. Interesting times in this marketplace…no?
Thanks for commenting,
Dave Courvoisier
Very interesting indeed, Dave. I feel SoundStreak has been slighted in recent months, since ipDTL was launched and Source Connects recent news. They need to remind others that they are a contender.
-Sean O. Shea
Free is good. Source Elements could establish themselves as ‘THE’ industry standard by enticing all of the early adopters. I’m ready… Now if we can just convince the studios & voice seekers to embrace it. Thanks Dave & Rebekah!