Software Should not Cost You an Arm and a Leg

DABE Solutions Ltd., UK and Estonian based software company, announced that it will not charge customers for most of the future business software products anymore.

"The world is changing. It is not just the software itself that is important but the consulting, training and customization services instead," said Annar Merirand, the CEO of DABE Solutions Ltd.

The software should be free to use for anyone, especially for those who could not afford it anyway. If customer is not willing to pay money for it, it does not make much sense to force him/her to do it. In majority of the cases, additional services are not essential in the beginning. The need for further help might rise later on.

Giving the products away for free is more efficient than struggling with piracy. The leftover resources are directed improve the quality of the customer service and other services instead. Besides, valuable feedback is received from the customers.

Eventually, most of the business solutions companies are earning their main income from services, not from products, for quite some time now. Big companies, like Microsoft and Oracle are offering free software products for their database engines. They too have understood that fighting with piracy does not make much sense.

In 2006 whole range of software packages, including CRM (Customer Relationship Manager), is going to be released using the same method. Currently available software products licencing stays the same until the autumn of 2006 when whole company licencing policy is reconsidered.

As small businesses grow, they need the software to be customized, according to their specific needs, sooner or later.

First free product named DABE FreeSales 2005 is already out and available at www.dabeweb.co.uk.

DABE Solutions has earned 52% of the revenue from entirely customized software packages in 2005, 12% of the revenue came from other services and only 36% from standard software packages sales. Average project duration of customized software solutions has decreased to just 2 weeks in the last year. Therefore it makes sense to concentrate on the most profitable area of our business and let the people use the sofware, which does not cost us much, without charge.