Bait and switch leaves a sour taste
I am surprised at a new trend (ok, so only based on 2 experiences recently) but companies will make their product available for free (as in beer), get a lot of users and market share - then discontinue the free edition and start charging.
While I understand the appeal of such a strategy, it does leave a very sour taste in the consumer’s mouth. Paying for software is a good thing (heck, we charge for Secret Server) and everyone needs to be able to pay their bills … but why the deceit?
It is also an interesting situation as a software vendor since we may be able to get more market share if we gave our product away for free (actually we do for a single user) but we are very clear that it costs money for our core audience – administrator teams who want to securely share certain passwords. I wonder how the competitors to these products feel about their actions.
I wonder if these companies would have gained *any significant* market share if their product had cost money from the beginning.
Jonathan Cogley is the CEO and founder of Thycotic Software, a .NET consulting company and ISV in Washington DC. Thycotic Secret Server is a secure web-based solution to both "Where is the password for this router?" and "Who has the password for our domain hosting?". Secret Server is the leader in secret management and sharing within companies and teams.