BlockBase & Classic Appliqué Add Ons - Why buy?

I just received an email from a quilter looking to purchase The Electric Quilt Company's BlockBase program. I've known for sometime now that The Electric Quilt Company has not re-produced the program. Actually the message on their website says, "This product is on permanent back-order until further notice." Now, I am not quite sure what it means when something is on "permanent back-order" but I have a feeling it really means, "We aren't planning to release it again unless the demand is so overwhelming we would be stupid not to."

I have thought a lot about The Electric Quilt Company as I was winding down my business and I began to wonder how they would respond to today's rapid changes in computer technology. As "Cloud" computing gathers steam and as people turn to smartphones and tablets, the view is desk top computers with their gigabytes of memory will be history. This is why I believe EQ7 will be the last full blown quilt design program released "for purchase" by The Electric Quilt Company. Instead, I see quilters subscribing to use any future program release on The Electric Quilt Company's own servers - yep, in the cloud!

We are getting a taste of that now through EQ's new "MyEQBoutique" site. Here quilters download a small software program after purchasing smaller packages of block patterns. Unless you specifically purchase a quilt pattern, you won't be able to design a quilt layout with the software but you will be able to play with the block sizes and get cutting and printing instructions. I think this site will be a litmus test for the company and its success will determine the direction EQ takes in the future. 

The Electric Quilt Company invested a great deal of man/woman hours designing the hundreds and hundreds of block patterns included with its quilt design program, add-on programs and other stand-alone programs. By re-releasing these patterns in smaller packages through the Boutique site, they might re-coup some of that huge capital investment. It is a smart move, actually. For example, the Classic Appliqué add-on CDs came with anywhere from 140 to 200 block patterns and originally sold for $21.95 US. On the EQBoutique site, 15 or 16 block patterns from those original CDs are priced from $8.99 to $10.99. This works out to a sale price of 69¢ per pattern on the Boutique site versus 11¢ on the CD and The Electric Quilt Company does have that capital expense of producing a software CD and can downsize their storage and shipping facilities, too.

So, turning back to my first paragraph, this is why I don't believe The Electric Quilt Company will re-release BlockBase. Therefore, I would encourage anyone with EQ7 & EQ6 to go on a hunt for retailers still carrying BlockBase and the Classic Appliqué Add-on CDs because they are a wonderful and are now a real bargain. And, yes, you can link the Classic Appliqué CDs and BlockBase to EQ7 as the image of my own Block Library on the left illustrates. 

Here are two sites selling these programs:

BlockBase - Sheila Williams OnlineStore

Classic Appliqué - Planet Patchwork