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Comment by kcy | Hacker News Reader

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kcy·

Can you do all the image/signal processing stuff with the home edition? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=382986

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The answer is right there on the linked page.

Q: How is Mathematica Home Edition different from the professional version of Mathematica?

Mathematica Home Edition is a fully functional version of Mathematica Professional with the same features.

I'm sorry, I'm probably missing the point. Why is it the same product with the same features but with a different name?

It's released to a specialized submarket of all Mathematica users (namely those who are paying out of pocket and who want to save money). That's called price discrimination, and it also exists among the submarkets of students shopping for colleges to attend.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/12/moving-toward-perfect...

The problem with Mathematica for serious development is that you need Mathematica to run the stuff. So if you write a gadget/utility, only people with Mathematica can run it.

This is an attempt to get deeper penetration into the hobbyist market.

You can freely distribute your UI-based 'gadgets' and what not using Mathematica Player, which is a free download. http://www.wolfram.com/products/player/

Why is it the same product with the same features but with a different name?

Price discrimination* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination) is profitable if you can pull it off.

*Don't let the scary name put you off; everyone price discriminates if they can. The best price discriminators in the world are American universities.

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