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N o one is making serious money selling educational software. The top companies in the educational technology market, such as Scholastic, David-son, Computer Curriculum, The Learning Company, and Jostens are all noodling along, making a few dollars—nothing like their siblings in the accounting software business or the grocery store management software business. It's basic economics: prices are high because the costs for developing good educational software are sincere; demand is low because the schools aren't spending their funds on software. The upshot? Not a vibrant mar-ket—little risk taking, less innovation, and only a small handful of products. This is an unacceptable situation. If technology is really going to impact education, software will be the key component. Without gasoline, the fanciest car takes you nowhere. By and large, schools use only software that comes already installed on the machine (a word processor, a spreadsheet, a drawing program). Pentium/PowerMac-level computers are being used as typewriters. It's heartbreaking. Today's computers equipped with the right software could reach out to all children and genuinely afford them the opportunity to engage deeply and substantively in ideas and collaborations. This column explores the challenges involved in getting to the point where a true cornucopia of educational software is available for our children. Why Does Educational Software Cost So Much? Our experiences with TV and glossy magazines have spoiled us; we won't accept computer-based materials that lack the designer's stamp. To produce CD-ROMs with high production values— the term used to describe polished , image-laden CDs such as " Alice to Ocean, " " Riven, " and " Bill Nye Science Guy " —costs between $250,000 and $2 million. Then there's the marketing, inventory and distribution costs. CD-ROM producers are hard pressed to get a satisfactory return on investment in the consumer CD-ROM market. The challenge is exponentially that much greater for educational CD-ROM publishers , whose costs are in the same ballpark but whose market size— schools—is several orders of magnitude smaller than the consumer market. If one looks at successful educational products, one typically finds serious thought and research behind them. Take for example two products sold by Broderbund: TableTop and The Logical World of the Zoombi-nis. TableTop enables 9 to 14

No one is making money in educational software