I guess you have your question answered than. I was also a BoS forum user since 2008.
With the XYZ (Apple, Microsoft) stores these days I wonder if a $39-99 desktop software can truly have success on these compare the the average < $9 app.
High-end B2B software can certainly be profitable, I would guess the $500-2500 software coming with support, integration, training etc.
My wife recently became familiar with the Mac AppStore after only ever using the iOS AppStore. Her first comment upon seeing the initial screen was "$19 for an app?? That's crazy!" I cringed a bit. Has the $0.99 app ruined everything for us?
Why the hell cringe? Just ignore the naysayers or cheapskates. If you're a developer, you know how much time and effort it takes to make a good product, right? Take your own independent decisions, after taking all facts and inputs (to a reasonable extent) into consideration.
EDIT:
>naysayers or cheapskates
Didn't mean to imply that your wife was one.
The thing is, most non-software people don't know enough about all the work [1] that goes into a custom software app, let alone into a shrink-wrapped product (which is much more, if done well). (Using the old term shrink-wrapped, though a lot of software is delivered over the web these days. Same difference :)
[1] Figuring out requirements / features to include, design, development, testing, testing, testing, ... , support, ... , marketing, ..., maintenance, ...
I sometimes get mails from (not really) customers like: 'can you add feature x of the paid version to the free version?'. The paid version is $4.99 by the way.
If you have decent app that solves problems well and you have enough energy left to do some marketing then probably you can make a decent living. Or you have a lot of luck, then no problems at all. But if you hope that customers find you by themselfes, maybe you shouldn't bet on the business.
There are tons of companies and even microISVs that make a good living or more, from desktop apps, in both the developed and less developed worlds. (But they are not 5$ apps.) Hell, there are many small and medium software companies in India (for example) that were doing good business (and probably still are) with Clipper / XBase apps for small businesses, on (gasp!) DOS, to take just one area (of both tech and domain). VB and VB.NET too. Delphi too, probably. C++/Qt too. C++/wxWidgets. ... I see the (XBase or other) apps myself in many shops, malls, doing the accounts, sales, POS, etc. Seen such apps in many factories too (I was on the field for a while, earlier). Its just that they are not mentioned much here on HN. (See the recent thread about the Rails jobs). And I'm sure it must be so in many other less developed countries too, not just in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. (which are highly computerized). HN is not the whole universe, only a quite small part of it, though we techies sometimes tend to think otherwise.
Hell yeah! rails jobs... i automatically ignore all javascript/ruby/and all those script kiddy threads here .
the thing is that HN is one of the largest HUB for developers
to hear opinion about development subjects .
where else i can post questions like that on the net ...?
My cousin in fact makes his application looks like a desktop application to sell to his customer base. He makes pos/accounting software with a windows application(skin) that talk to his php backend over http. He sells these apps mainly to his customers in middle east.
