The cost to employ each incremental salesperson is the same, independent of customer numbers. Because of the high expense to design, program, test, distribute, and support good software, vendors make very little profit, if any, from an initial software sale. If a software vendor cannot attract a high enough number of customers, they will not have the recurring revenue necessary to improve their products and services, but only to maintain an existing level. There is typically some level of guaranteed response time for all other support calls. Bugs are typically fixed in a couple of days or less.
Quality assurance is generally very high prior to software being released.
These standards are achieved because most vendors garner the necessary number of customer accounts, and therefore the recurring revenue necessary to cover high fixed costs, as well as innovate and improve. The logical conclusion is that we must trim the number of companies in the club market so that each remaining company can achieve the necessary market penetration. The only way that the market will change for the better, allowing for the desired level of products and services, is for managers to demand it. At a technology workshop that I recently presented for the Ohio Valley Chapter of CMAA, I asked each attendee to rank the most important attributes of a potential club software vendor. Using a list of twelve attributes, I asked attendees to rank them from most important to least.