

Is Free The Future Of Enterprise Software?  Yes And No.  - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/12/guest-post-is-free-the-future-of-enterprise-software-yes-and-no/

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10ren
_Free is a marketing tactic_

This reduces the need to do "sales" as much - attractive for techie
entrepreneurs.

"Free" is easier to implement for SaaS, but you can still do it for products,
with a demo. The problem here is that the a time-limited or cripple-ware demo
won't become as entrenched in the user's workplace as a SaaS version that is
limited by the amount of use, or by the number of users etc. That is, a limit
that allows the user to get some real value from you, ongoing, for free.

Actually, now that I think about it, of course you can limit a product in the
same way as a SaaS version. Some limits are easy to enforce (e.g. number of
contacts in a database), and for some you need to add management code or
architecture (e.g. to monitor how often it is used). More code is always more
complexity, and harder to test because it's interacting with the outside. But
you can always just _say_ what the limits are: communicate it clearly your
website, in the license/contract, and in the product. Most people like to play
by the rules, if they know what they are.

 _EDIT_ Although, I guess, if the software is entrenched, and it's a hassle to
buy it, and it's still working... many businesses might find it hard to make
the purchase. But the enterprise tends to be very organized about that kind of
thing. ah... it's probably best to enforce the limits, if you possibly can.

