alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley) (05/17/89)
In article <8310004> brian@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Brian Rauchfuss) writes: > I have been marketing DigSim, a logic simulator (plug! plug!) for >a few years now. It works pretty well for me, people who use it alot >send in money. It seems that it depends on the type of program. If >it is something people will use alot, like a desk accessory or word >proccessor, people will send in money. If it is a utility which people >only occasionally use, they probably won't. A prime example is FEdit, >an extremely useful file editing/fixing program. Apparently everyone >kept it (just in case), but few paid for it. It is now a commercial >program. I was one of the people who sent in my shareware fee for FEdit. I never received an update notice, I had to steal a newer copy off a BB to update it. Then I heard that FEdit was becoming a commercial product so I wrote to the company asking for more info, they never replied. So I use other disk editors instead. The bigest problem with the current (and only version as far as I know) of Fedit is that it doesn't believe in Hard disks larger than 20MB (crash and burn if you expose it to anything bigger). The other annoying bug is that the menus are implemented as code resources and so you can't add menu key equivalents. It was a good product, ruined in my view by poor customer support. After my experience in licensing the copy I had, I wasn't particlarly positive about asking other people to go through the same hassle. But hey, it was shareware and you get what you pay for. As an example of the opposite, I have a copy of Copy II Mac. They send me regular update cards, I send back regular checks for updates. It cost me twice as much to buy my original copy as it did for FEdit, I have had better support and a lot more use out of Copy II Mac than Fedit, definitely more than twice the value. In summary, if you market a shareware product and I use it, I'll keep on sending you moeny just as long as you keep letting me know about updates, I'm even prepared to pay more to ensure that. Alex Heatley Computing Services Centre Domain: alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz Victoria University of Wellington Path: ...!uunet!vuwcomp!rata!alex P.O Box 600, New Zealand. Trolls can often be found under bridges ... or in Computing Departments.