Converging on Microsoft

Mitchell Ashley

Previous Article Next Article

Vendors: The Right Free Software Strategy For 2009

By Mitchell Ashley on Wed, 12/31/08 - 10:59pm.

There are lots of free services and software out on the net, much of it you probably wonder how the company will ever make money with. But I occasionally run into someone who seems to have it figured out. Recently a co-worker turned me onto Virtual CloneDrive, free software that mounts ISO images as virtual hard drives. I began using the free software thinking what a great little tool it was. Very handy and it has worked like a charm without any hitches. (I'd recommend it if you don't already have such a program.) My experience with that free software was very positive, which unconsciously spilled over onto the software's creator, Slysoft. That was a little more than a month ago.

Recently I began a new video project, including editing and moving video snippets from DVD onto mobile devices, like my Blackberry Storm, iPhone and Windows Mobile 6 SmartPhone and back onto DVD. I also added a Blu-Ray player to the media workstation I use in my business. While searching for the right ripping, editting, conversion and burning tools, I came across Slysoft again. Ah yes, the Virtual CloneDrive guys - we meet again.

To make a long story short, I now own and use three of their products: AnyDVD HD, CloneDVD, CloneDVD Mobile in addition to the free Virtual CloneDrive software. My positive experience with Virtual CloneDrive increased my interest and preference in trying and eventually buying the three commercial Slysoft products. Slysoft uses a fox and a sheep in their branding. I have a feeling I was foxed by their free software, which makes the me the sheep (in a good way, I hope.) My experiences with AnyDVD HD, CloneDVD and CloneDVD Mobile have been equally as positive as my first experience with the free CloneDrive, though Slysoft definitely needs to add a preconfigured setting for the Blackberry Storm's screen size.

That's how free software is supposed to work. It's much different than just 30 day trial software, which Slysoft uses in their commercial products. Virtual CloneDrive was free, no strings attached and provided me a great little tool which strongly influenced a purchase for my business. Virtual CloneDrive happens to be core technology used within the AnyDVD product as you can mount DVD and Blu-Ray images as virtual drives.

Slysoft isn't the only one to take the "free" software camel's-nose-under-the-tent approach. You can see elements of this approach in Microsoft's Live software, Live Mesh, SkyDrive and some extended product beta's. Presumably these will lead into integration with Office Online apps and other Live services on desktop and mobile platforms. Give away basic, core stuff and sell the high value software and services. Microsoft's done this particularly well with Hyper-V Server, which just begs you to wrap Virtual Machine Manager around it within the data center.

My hat's off to Slysoft, for both making some great products and for giving away something that's valuable and useful. Let's see what else Microsoft and other vendors might do to leverage this same model in 2009.

If you have a great example of valuable free software leading you to buy a commercial product from a company, feel free to comment about it here.

Like this? Here are some of Mitchell's recent posts.

Microsoft Get Busy & Don't Listen To The Analysts

Windows 7 Beta Hits The Wires

Great Week To Reduce That IT To Do List

Microsoft Experiments On iPhone Users

Why Are Entrepreneurs Joining Microsoft?

Top 5 Obstacles To Adopting Subscription Pricing

Google Tasks Lists - The Economy Must Be Bad

Mitchell's Book Recommendations:

Here Comes Everbody

Seth Godin's: the dip

The Big Switch

Zero Day Attack

Clear Blogging

Also visit Mitchell's other blogs and podcasts:

Visit Microsoft Subnet for more news, blogs, opinion from around the Web. Sign up for the bi-weekly Microsoft newsletter. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)