[salman89]

If the problem you are trying to solve is inaccessibility due to prohibitive cost, you'd have to at least show that there is market at that lower price point.

With regards to matlab, I don't believe the cost to be prohibitive. In most situations where you'd even require what matlab provides, $2k is not that much money. There is also already a very good product that competes with matlab on price - Octave, and its free.

Creating value isn't as simple as just making something cheaper.