What Turns You Off About Evaluation Software? 699
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I work at a mid-tier software company (which shall remain nameless, lest I draw attention to myself). Recently we have started making 30 day evaluation versions of our software available for download after prospects register. An email containing a username and password is sent to the registrant a few hours after submission. We have been surprised to find that not a few registrants don't actually go on to download the software. We make the file size and system requirements clear up front. I would guess some slashdot readers get involved in evaluations. What process do you go through? Why might you stop short of actually downloading the software?"
Evaluation Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Why HOURS? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re-registering (Score:4, Interesting)
You could have already thought of this, but that's just the first thing that popped into my mind. They don't download the software because they already have the software. They just need a new code.
Often it is too complicated (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't do this anymore. Much easier to get a version with all necessary serial numbers and whatever included from edonkey or usenet.
Don't require registration. Don't ask intrusive questions. It is not good for your company if the legit evaluation copy is harder to obtain than the warez version.
Do you believe in death after life?
To be blunt... (Score:2, Interesting)
Commercial Software usually sucks. (Score:2, Interesting)
it. Indeed, i never do so, even if i payd for it. I'm receiving more that enough SPAM by now. I don't even register to read Newspapers online which sometimes are linked to slashdot articles. Thats to anoying. Why should i do such stupidity ??
Why passwords if in the end anything is crackable ???!!
...and usually commercial software have the most anying bugs. If some Open Software has a bug, most probably next week its fixed. Then i do apt-get install
Bye.
Eval Software (Score:3, Interesting)
A good example is something that happened recently. We had a memory leak and I was asked to figure it out. I said that a profiler would be an excellent tool to have so I downloaded evals of a couple of popular products. Before I could get to any evaluation we sorted the problem out using other means.
The tools we used we crude and even though the immediate problem was solved, I still wanted something more sophisticated. I moved on to other more pressing issues and when I finally had a quiet moment to install and play with the profilers, I realized my thirty days was gone.
I think sales departments assume that developers live in a very linear world. That we:
1.) Isolate the need for a product.
2.) Collect relevant information.
3.) Download demos
4.) Conduct a formal evaluation
5.) Based on the merits, make a decision.
This is not the world I live in.
You might have it backwards. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, our method is the reverse of yours. You can download all the binaries [etnus.com] whenever you want, any time, all the time. Transfer interrputed? Go ahead, download again. Downloaded it, but lost it? Download again. Got corrupted? Download again. These are the real things, not crippled evaluation versions.
What we do is liberally give out demo licenses [etnus.com] via email, that expires after a short time. Provided you're not an asshole, you can renew your demo licenses.
Of course, the downside to this it could be cracked and warez'd out. I don't know the company stance and don't pretend to speak for it, but I don't care. Piracy is part of doing business in software, and the less you piss off your customers, IMHO, the better. So, while I don't like people pirating our software, I'm still against the recent stupid-ass (c'mon, you all know the words!) laws that seem to have festered recently in this area.
Perhaps this works better, I don't know why. Maybe it's psychological: people download the binary first and then feel they need to try it out to justify the time spent. Or something like that.
Maybe there's no crack yet (Score:1, Interesting)
1) Get the version number
2) Search the crack sites and Serials 2002
3) If that fails, search the cracks/serials IRC channels
4) If there are only cracks for older versions, then use FTP search etc to find slightly older versions for which cracks or serials work
5) If that fails, try Gnutella/Morpheus etc
6) If that fails, try the clean warez sites
7) If that fails, try the dirty warez sites
8) If that fails, and I'm getting stuck in warez site porn loops, fire up SoftIce or Win32DASM and try to crack it myself
9) During the above sequence, search for equivalent software for which warez/cracks are available
10) If all of the above fail, then download the software and install it with an installation monitor (a program which logs all registry changes and file additions/mods). Use this information to write a 'loader' (a program which fools the prog into thinking that every time it loads, the trial has just started).
11) But if the product is 'crippleware' (important features disabled), then download the program and post requests to crack/warez newsgroups, message boards, IRC channels, and wait 2-3 months till crack becomes available.
12) If the prog 'phones home' to verify registration, I use AtGuard to block the connection, taking care to block IE as well (which many crap shareware progs use as a firewall backdoor).
13) If the prog is 'ad-ware', then I get great pleasure from logging the adserver hosts and putting them in my w--dows 'hosts' file, or blocking them at the firewall.
I have a collection of over 5 gigs of pirated software, including prime stuff like Win2k, Office 2k etc, right through to minor apps.
At various times, I've run warez sites on the web, freenet, IRC, gnutella and morpheus, and freely shared with others what I've taken.
But I got sick of the whole thing, and totally sick of the stupid limitations and weaknesses of w--dows.
I'm now happily using linux full time, and only boot my w--dows partition once in a blue moon when I need to run a certain app which is windows only and uses drivers (can't run under wine, vmware etc), and for which there is no good Linux equivalent.
I'm thoroughly sick of the whole shareware/nagware/crippleware shit, fed up with the whole w--dows scumware scam prison, and if I can't find a good prog for free on apt or freshmeat, then (with rarest exceptions) I can't be bothered. I write my own.
You may detest me as a pirate and 'thief'.
But I feel I've been in total integrity with this.
Because the whole concept of shareware is the first step on the road towards subscription-only software (pay per use or pay per month), thin-client 'webware' running on corporate-controlled servers, all the way to proprietary closed protocols which take over the internet and force everyone through pay-per-packet internet tollgates and ultimately drive open source software off the net.
So to the dear correspondent who is asking why people don't download shareware, I would suggest that you immediately release your software under the GPL or LGPL, and revise your business plan to find alternative ways of generating revenue from your software.
Thoughts from the evaluation process... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Ugh... they want my email address... Yeah, you send your spam to nobody@notme.com"
"Damn it, these spammy bastards mail you the access codes. [sigh] Okay, here's my real address..."
"A FEW MORE HOURS?!"
"Okay, Kazaa, where's the full version?"
My reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Most utilities and apps are more trouble than they're worth. Particularly if we are talking about Windows software, it seems popular for 'programmers' to make a big deal out of their little program, writing all over the registry and putting files who knows where (which should not leave the program's own directory). Most of these save their registry settings "just in case" its reinstalled and don't fully uninstall themselves.
As far as Unix programs, chances are there's a better and free implimentation at Freshmeat. Make it GPL.
3) With Windows shareware/demoware in general, it's just a pain to deal with the cute little "register me" BS like popup windows, program start delays, time limits, "enter your registration number," etc. If I like the program, I'll register it, but annoying me every time I use the program just associates being annoyed with using that program.
Psychology 101 will show companies why that is a bad thing.
Just my $0.02
the Hyporicy! (Score:2, Interesting)
that is: how many of you received their username and password for Slashdot in their e-mail?
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean that I have tons of pirated/cracked software on my computers? No, because if it works for me, I will abide by the licensing conditions set forth by the authors. I don't have enough time to waste it waiting for an email. When looking at Win32 X-servers, it took the people who make X-Win32 4 days to get me that password. I had long sincehit up astalavista for a crack and google for a download. And then the spam starts rolling in...(sigh)
A few hours (Score:3, Interesting)
As so many others have mentionend, a "few hours" is a very long time. Perhaps not only because people have a short attention span, but because people, the potential costumers, are comparison shopping, and the delay meant that they went elsewere.
I don't know what software your company is making, but lets assume it is something for the desktop user, a piece of software that may have advanteges over the competition, but nevertheless may be easely substituted with something from a competing company. Eg. a small photo editing app.
Somewhere, a proud owner of a new digital camera, wants that kind of software; he goes searching on the web, looks at screenshoots, featurelists and prices, and decides that 3 products looks promising: two of the products are instantly downloaded and tried out, but your app, requires not only a long registration formular, but induces a surpricing two hour waiting period, in which your potential costumer, not only have tried your competitions apps, but may have actually bought them.
Think about going down "Main Street", shopping for a pair of shoes; In one shop, when asking for trying out a pair of shoes, the expedient hands you a two page formular, asking among other things, your phone number, age and job status.
After spending 20 minutes filling it out, you are then told to come back in a couple of hours.
You then go elsewhere.
Lets assume, that your software is somewhat more expensive, and not an "impulse" buy. Perhaps an unique app, that will help people design better, and faster "foo". Surely, professionals may be more patient. But no, that work dead afternoon, where you potential costumer is searching the web for tools that may make him more productive, may be followed up by 5 hectic days. So if you don't engage your potential costumer when he has time, you can loose an oppertunity.
Same thing with the trial period; if your software cost serious money, it probably requieres several hours to test. Most professionals have way too little time at their disposal, they may only have some short timeslots availeably during a week, for testing something new. 30 days may pass quickly, so bump the trial period to 60 days (like eg. IBM does).
In short, make your product as easely availably as possible.
Re:A few hours? (Score:3, Interesting)
And the solution is to allow them to start downloading the software immediately, and send them an activation key in the email that they enter directly into the software post-installation.
The resoning is that by the time they're done downloading and installing your software, the email will have arrived. And if it hasn't then they'll still be more inclined to wait a bit longer since they've already gone through the effort of installing it.
However, if you can, send the key immediately, or at least send a confirmation mail to let them know that it's on its way.
Re:A few hours? (Score:2, Interesting)
So I think attention span in this situation is somewhat different. If you can reasonably expect an eventual payoff (e.g., getting your software demo), you're probably willing to wait longer than if you have reason to believe that your efforts will eventually be fruitless.
That said, I'd never download a demo if it didn't offer immediate gratification as one of it's features...
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:3, Interesting)
[poster1 said:]
1. 90 day or unlimited trial only with the stupid features turned off.
[poster2 replied:]
In other words, pretty much give it away for free. (90 days apart to uninstall/reinstall or in some cases reformat is not much of a pain in the ass.)
Better: In your registration code, encode the start and end dates of the evaluation. Encrypt and obfuscate it to the far-thee-well, and have done.
If someone's willing to keep the dates on they're computer out of sync, you'll not get money out of them anyway (since they're too small of a shop (or home) for you to bother with.
Though I must strongly agree with the poster who suggested sending email warnings about licenses expiring. Veritas NetBackup does the encode the date thing. We had paid for it, and I thought that I had put the keys in correctly. However, it just quit on me. Something one does NOT want to see in their enterprise backup solution...
Why I close the browser window... (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Registration. It's one thing to enter my name and email address, but I don't know if I want to create a login account to your site. Is it worth that extra step?
3. Download speed. If my location has a decent internet connection and I'm only getting 5-10 KB/sec, then large files are out of the question. If that download is at non-peak hours (and the site isn't Slashdotted) and the download speed is still unreasonable, I'll probably try other software sources first.
4. Free "developer" copies. Some people out there are going to call me a "Slashdot freebie-seeker", but free limited-implementation copies are to your company's advantage.
If "developers" (including sysadmins, DBAs, and less-technical users like artists) are able to use the software at home, they're more likely to recommend it. Depending on the software, your company "loses" money in the short term, but can make it up with big contracts (assuming that's a viable sales path). Also, making the product available at the user-level helps both the publisher and job-seekers. If your software is "in demand", unemployed IT workers (like myself) can download it, become famliar, and add that skill to the resume. On the other hand, if there are significant barriers to getting and using your software -- limited time trial, overly crippled features, or requiring the purchase of a license -- you're limiting your market. The law of supply and demand kicks in: the fewer developers there are, the more they cost an employer; raising the TCO of your product is not a strong marketing point.
Terms of sale can be a turn-off (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a certain video editing application for Windows that has a feature I need (direct VOB editing), a feature that I haven't found in any other editing app, proprietary or otherwise, on any of the platforms I use (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows). I will not, however, even bother to evaluate it because the download instructions make it clear that to use it beyond the 30 days, I will have to email in a number calculated by the demo and get a registration number back (thus locking the registration to my current hardware).
Moral of the Story: Everything counts when you make a decision to download and run a demo, even terms of sale that don't apply unless you decide to buy.
Agree with unrestricted download, fast key gen (Score:4, Interesting)
When I eval stuff for work (software developer), I don't mind at all registering my work info. It's the same way with conferences - I'm happy to give out my info.
Why? In general I find that companies trying to sell to other companies are not nearly as bad about spam as Fred's House 'O Cheap DVD's. Besides, it's my work mail account - who cares what happens to that.
So registration is not the problem as I see it. As others have said, you need to let the users download it whenever they like - look at just about any big chunck of enterprise software, they all have full versions you can DL. Then you need to send out a key, pronto! And make it easy. I've seen plenty of software where I downloaded it by then by the time I got the key I was doing something else and forgot the whole thing, or the key was such a PITA to get I just dropped the whole thing.
If you are worried about someone downloading it and making copies - fold up shop and shut down the company. You're going to be dissapointed if you expect anything less than everyone on earth having a fully enabled copy hours after the first regitsered user fires it up. Learn to live with that, then charge a fair price and people WILL pay you - remember, it's not even thier own money they are using so they are probably included to give you some! Plus, companies like nothing more than paying for support contracts even when they are not needed.
Why we ask you to fill out a form (Score:1, Interesting)
I work for a small software company, and I was involved in the decision to require potential customers to fill out a form before they could download our software. Originally, we allowed users to download our software with a simple click on a link -- no registration required. Those who "advised" our company pushed for us to add the registration forms, and to save the information into a database. Our forms validate the contact information -- just basic stuff, like checking for numbers in the phone number field. However, we require a valid email address, since we mail a URL for downloading to the email address entered. We also have a short survey form with questions about what product enhancements would interest the potential customer.
Why did we decide to require the registration? I think the primary reason is that the sales team felt it gave them more control. When we had no registration forms, we could only know how many times the software was downloaded. (Although, actually, at the time we could only get that information via the log files of the web server -- not the most convenient way to do it.) We couldn't even know very basic information like how many people downloaded the software. We couldn't tell if 50 people downloaded, or if one person downloaded 50 times. (Yes, sometimes one person does download more than once.) Now, when we have the registration forms, we feel that we have a lot more information. Yes, there are many who enter garbage in all the fields. And yes, there are those who use the obvious throw-away email addresses. But we assume them to be not very serious prospective customers. Conversely, there are those who enter very accurate information, and we assume them to be much better sales prospects. The serious entries are valuable to us, as they give us a picture of who our potential customers are.
You have to understand that the sales team like to feel in control. When you just put your product out there and wait for people to contact you, it is difficult to cope. The information collected through the download forms takes away some of the uncertainty, and you sleep a lot better at night. If the information is positive, you sleep better for the obvious reason. If the information is negative, you can get everyone off their duffs and start making the necessary changes sooner rather than later. Some of the people respond to our email by telling us that they decided to use a competitor's product. That kind of information is gold to us! If we had not collected a valid email address, we would have never gotten that information.
In case you were wondering, we send follow up emails within a week or two. After that, if you have no desire to speak with our sales team, you never hear from us again.
To discuss a little more the decision process... I was against requiring potential customers to fill out a form. I argued about how it would turn off a lot of people. Apparently I was quite right that it pisses people off to have to give their email address. In the end, I acquiesced, reasoning that they are getting something for free, so they should be willing to give up something. But being tuned in to peoples' concerns about spam, I thought it was absolutely essential that we be very honest about how their email address would be used.
A different point of view... (Score:1, Interesting)
I've just read 200+ posts from other whiny /.ers stating "if I have to wait more than 2.3 seconds, I'll bail", or "you don't need my e-mail address."
I, however, like to at least pretend that I live in the real world; I realise that you're trying to make a profit. You have a sales channel. You have marketing. You also have software I'm interested in.
So yes - I'll wait for the e-mailed registration keys. I'll give you the marketing info you want - even though, with the drivel that others here speak, you'd be hard pressed to glean any sensible information out of it.
Just make the software good.
(Posted Anonymously because I really believe there'd be retribution from the abovementioned whiners)
What turns me off? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm made to type in an e-mail address to download, I type in a bogus address. If I need to get a key or anything else from my e-mail, I've just been sent the message that the software company does'nt want my business. This has happened more then once, and I've gone somewhere else. If I like your software, and I give you my or my companies credit card number, you get to know who I am. Not before.
2. Full featured software. If I bother to download your evaulation, I expect to be able to use it. When I can't save my work, or find that an important feature is turned off, or I have some stupid 10 minut time limit, the software gets deleted.
3. Installation. I can tell right away how much I'd like or not like a peice of software by installation. Paste icons all over my desktop without asking? You've annoyed me. Put yourself in my startup, even though it's not needed? You're gone. Bundle yourself with spyware? You're gone.
4. Remind me, clearly, when the evaulation period is getting to the end. 'You have 5 days left in your evaulation period' when I start the program up. I can think of many times when I've found a peice of software I like, forget to purchase it, forget to get approval for the purchase. I find another way to get something done, and I'll just forget about it. If I were a more orginized person, I'd keep tabs of those things, but I'm not.
Re:Joel's rule (Score:5, Interesting)
This was actually very literally proved out at Borland, too. While I was the Web guy there, we watched "attrition" rates for pages. It went something like this: if you have a home page with 1000 people hitting it, only 500 people will hit the subpages, and only 250 people will hit the sub-subpages. Once we realized that, we quickly moved to a very busy homepage with tons of links, trying to keep everything 2 or 3 clicks away at most. Even though I found the design to be ugly ugly ugly, I was amazed at how the numbers improved. Previously buried articles quadrupled their readership -- at the expense of nothing else. Everything benefitted from the rise.
What Turns Me Off About Evaluation Software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Filling out those "forms" doesn't really bug me too much (except that bloody CNET wants us to fill out bloody forms now just to download freeware!), as I fill them all out pretty much the same:
Name: Homer Simpson
Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC.
Country: Azerbajan
Zip: 90210
Year of birth: 1900
...and so on. You get the idea.
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:3, Interesting)
Should be obvious that for companies paying the $20-200 for a software that's beneficial/useful is _NOTHING_. Besides companies really cant have afford to get busted for piracy in a software audit. Naturally this does not include countries were piracy is as illegal as spitting on the ground (and this inturn does no include Singapore
Nonetheless the point is that a majority of the people at home downloading evaluation versions wouldnt purchase them anyway, where as companies would/could, given that the evaluation version was tolerabel and the prices and the works were layd out upfront.
Some evaluation version sellers tend to use so annoying strategies that I'm really amazed that how on earth will they ever actually sell anything.
Take Real for example. I for one would never ever purchase anything from them...
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are catering to a technically savvy user, you will never get a useable email address on your download form... let alone any other useful information.. I personally fill things out with all bogus info and u
se a disposable email addy. and It is a practive I reccomend to everyone here at work also..
#1- get rid of any forms to fill out . they are a waset of your time and drives away customers.
#2 - IF you get a real email address. delete ALL customer information when the customer asks to have your sales department to stop harassing them. There are 2 electronic CAD companies I have twice asked to stop emailling me. I had to resort to writing a script that takes every email I recieve from them and send out 10 copies to assorted email addresses in the company with STOP SENDING THIS TO ME auto added to the top. I finally had to contact the CEO with a letter explaining that I wil make sure that noone I know will ever buy their products because of their sales department for the emails to stop.
finally.. Dont you dare sell that contact information. Only the scummiest companies sell their user database... do you want to be a part of that? I made sure my company isnt. and I make sure to tell the boss that his bright idea of forcing contact info to be entered was a dumb idea and is only wasting everyone's time... mentioning this at meetings is a great way to remove such silly things.
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:4, Interesting)
Do it periodically. Every 10 mins.
Does the job quite nicely.
I'm guilty of this (Score:4, Interesting)
Dear Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder what the responses to this question would be worth to a marketing department...
Re:My reasons (Score:2, Interesting)
BING!! Number one answer!
These artifacts make it even harder to deal with an already arcane and unnecessarily complex system. When something doesn't work, and I need to go registry-spelunking looking for problems, it's amazing how much of this detritus I find.
Re:You might have it backwards. (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't piss off your customers. Even honest people can be cranky and impatient, so go easy on them.
I was surprised by an expiration date on a piece of "shareware" (vendor's term, no expiry mentioned before it failed.) After the timebomb went off, I went to enough trouble reinstall their software to extract the data I had in it, and bought their competitor's more complex, more expensive product.
Another story: A dev team wanted to examine Oracle 8i enterprise, and the free eval didn't include some of the features they wanted to evaluate. I purchased the full product with a small license. A week or two later, I got a call from an Oracle rep who explained to me that I hadn't purchased sufficient licenses, and needed to spend tens of thousands more dollars. He was uninterested in the fact that we were not using this in production, but hoped to develop with it if it provided the functionality we needed. After a conversation with the dev team about alternatives, I called him back and told him we wouldn't need _any_ licenses.
I'm sure he was confident that he wasn't losing any future sales. I'm confident that he did. Regardless, don't do that if you're not Oracle.
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:3, Interesting)
To nuke an address, just delete the alias. The problem is that the spammers still try to send to the address (once on the list seems to mean forever on the list). Even though the mail never gets to your inbox, it's still using your bandwidth.. actually double because of the bounce message.
Anyone out there have a hack for sendmail that will simply blackhole mail bound for a given address? Just drop the connection when the offending RCPT command is received?
Re:I dont enter my email (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the RCPT TO: <certain_spammer@my.domain> identifies an inbound-but-unwanted letter, rather than have it drop the connection, have it S...L...O...W - I...T...S...E...L...F - D...O...W...N. Spam works because they can send thousands out easily. They still have to establish thousands of connections. Make any appreciable percent of those difficult, and spam will not work as well.
This might not work so well with true $$MAKE_MONEY_FAST$$ spam, but it should work for those companies who refuse to stop sending you email. They're usually more clueless than you might expect.