Offering Free Products?
photo credit: lepiaf.geo
Remember the day’s of free products? When you could use Microsoft office for free, free intranets, free version’s of messengers and internet browser’s. The past few year’s everything has gone from free version’s to fee based version’s. However, it does seem like were merging back into the free era again. BlogsOpenForum.com posted an article regarding this very concept.
Microsoft now offer’s a basic free version of their service, free email’s, free messengers, free basic software everywhere you look again, hoping you’ll upgrade to a higher quality fee based version. If your thinking about free software for your business, there are some thing’s to think about first.
Meet with a technology specialists to go over the pros and cons of free software. Make sure the software has few bugs if any and that the product is going to provide everything you need to run your business now and later down the road.
Once you feel that it can meet your needs, you need to focus on support options. How will you get support for the product? Can your local consultant help? Do you need to pay support fees to the vendor providing the free product or service? Can you support the product with your own internal IT staff?
What are your thought’s on free software today?
Curt on April 28th, 2009 9:38 am
Free products are toast in the new economy. Free products work best with low margin products and a lot of competition.
The economic meltdown is reducing competition and inflation will put business to abandon low margin products.
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