What about the money you can earn with c3D apps?

[Anonymous]

I'm curious about the posibility to earn money developing c3d apps.

What is your experience ?  (of course this post is directed to people who sales autodesk apps)

Can be a job ? Can one dedicate to this? How much money can one earn?

The incomes, paypal comissions substracted, are 100 % for developer ?

 What is your actual knowledge about the impact of piracy on apps ?

 Is there some protection about intelectual property of apps ideas ? Can other developer copy it ? Can autodesk copy it ?

Thanks

[michael.robertson]

What you can earn totally depends on what you can provide. You can't make a lot of money on little app that make small tasks a little easier. It would have to be something that really provides a large improvement production if you are thinking about making a living at it. This usually means either you or a partner has actual engineering/design background.

I think with more DOTs starting to use C3D the market may be growing but at the same time they are going to expect rock solid programs, not nice little apps like for tablets & phones.

Larger corporations/entities are going to be more likely to required digitally signed applications to help guard against virus/malware.

There are a number of companies that provide mechanisms to secure your applications against piracy.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. 

I'm thinking both on little and great applications.

In case of a 2$ app, can be multiplied x 10000 users along the world ?

That is, can you earn 20000 dolars ?

Thanks 

[michael.robertson]

Not by any means an expert but I think 10,000 users is WAY out of the ballpark on what you could expect to see. Most decent size entities have in-house people that can create $2 quality apps already (using Lisp, VBA, .NET, Arx).

As an entity with over 800 CADD users we'd rather pay a large some for a single application (10's of thousands) that really saves us time/money than a bunch of little apps (we can already do those types of things).

Could be totally wrong, just my guess.

[granite07]

Have you considered the market for contractors, subcontractors, and their employees?

As a design engineering firm the produces the base C3D model, I can see that a bunch of small apps are basically worthless since you make these in-house all day long. But, what about the many end users of the C3D model that just discovered the average highlighted cells function in excel and think it is astonishing...

They might like a bunch of easily purchaed with a click $2 apps that do whatever they need done. I have no ide what function these apps would provide but I do think if you can connect with this market then that is where you will find 10,000's of end users.

I will take my 1% commision in large denomination bills thank you 🙂

[Civil3DReminders_com]

I'm seeing a much smaller adoption rate in the purchasing of apps. No where near 10,000 downloads. I'm seeing about 40-50 downloads for a free app and 3-10 for one that costs $2 that's been on the market for about 6 months. Then again it could be because of what my apps do is for a limited population. But who doesn't have the need to toggle surface styles on and off?

[Civil3DReminders_com]

I think most decent size entities have communication issues that prevent the $2 apps from being created in house. From my experience I'd say Florida DOT is an outlier.

[michael.robertson]

Civil3dReminders: just wondering, what do you mean by "communications issues".

Just as an FYI I don't know if we would even be allowed to download pay apps from the app store due to our precedures, it's something we would have to look into.

[Civil3DReminders_com]

Florida DOT is using (or used) more of my code/apps then my former large corporation employer does/did, although its modified to work with your work flow. 

Often times available rescources aren't adequately used. For instance one group in a large company may have a project requirement to use Civil 3D, but don't have the experience. Another group may have the expertise, but due to communication issues they don't ask for help from the other group. I know this affected me personally because I was sitting at home and people where drawing sections into section views in Civil 3D without using corridors. The project really needed a custom subassembly to make it more efficient. I had those skills, but was not contacted. I was sitting at home at the time on furlough due to lack of work.

At my time at the company I think I was contacted maybe two or three times at the most to create an app/custom subassembly/custom pipe rule. Most of the apps I created where self benefiting.

[michael.robertson]

Amazing how that works isn't it!

[granite07]

maybe there was some logic in that configuration - the key clue is furlough.

Back in the 30's my great uncle worked in an iron works making rail road spikes with a sledgehammer; another guy held the nail and he swung. In the back of the shop was a large machine under a tarp. He asked "what is that". The boss said "if we turn that on it makes more railroad spikes in an hour than you and everyone in this shop combined makes in a day - the government forbids us from turning it on". My uncle said "that's lame", or the 1930's equivalent.  And the boss said "do you want a job or do you want to make spikes".

The point is, the story is cool, but also there might be a reason nobody raised their hand and said, "you know, Chris has this cool app that could do all of our jobs", also could explain why you were furloughed.

Want to make friends and have so interesting conversations at lunch, join a construction crew and work as fast as you can everyday.