Scrambling for a Share : Authors of Software Search for Ways to Cope With Competition
Savvy personal computer users have always relied on “shareware” as a cheap way to get good software. With shareware, you get to try a program, then pay for it only if you like it. Prices are usually low.
Nowadays, though, with commercial programs such as Lotus’ Approach database and Borland’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet selling for less than $100, many shareware authors--often one-person shops operating on a shoestring--can’t compete. Some are being driven out of business.
The good news is that despite all the turmoil, a new generation of shareware developers has stepped up to accommodate the changing needs of computer users. Thanks mainly to booming PC sales and the increasing prevalence of modems, which make it easy to get shareware, the industry as a whole appears to be thriving.
In 1992 (the latest year for which figures are available), shareware authors took in $46.8 million in registration fees, says Steve Hudgik, a shareware author who does an annual survey. That compares to $24.2 million in 1989.
But the business is changing so fast that many shareware writers have had to scramble to survive. For instance, discount stores such as Wal-Mart have begun carrying super-low-priced software, often as low as $10. That has put the pinch on some shareware authors, even as others moved to take advantage of the new outlet by releasing their products as low-priced commercial packages.
Moreover, the broad acceptance of the Microsoft Windows operating environment has changed the marketplace, throwing some old-line DOS authors on hard times. Early this year, Seattle-based shareware pioneer Quicksoft, maker of that venerable DOS favorite PC-Write, went belly up.
Newer, Windows-aware shareware developers are reaping the benefits. Most new shareware is written for Windows, and the advent of Visual Basic, a relatively easy-to-learn programming language with a modular, prefab approach, has opened up the field by letting even people with relatively little formal experience write Windows software.
Shareware, more than most kinds of human commerce, depends on trust. You try it out for free; if you keep it after, say, 30 days, you are supposed to pay the author. No one will know if you don’t pay, although some programs will plague you with reminders beyond the trial period.
No one knows how many people actually register, or pay for, the shareware they are using. Shareware authors’ estimates range from just 1% to 60%. Games makers, among the most successful of shareware authors in recent years, have a way around the problem, via a technique pioneered by shareware games powerhouse Apogee Software. In essence, they give away part of a game.
Usually you get to try out one “adventure” in a series of three or more. That’s often enough of a hook. To get the next adventure, you have to register the program.
Eric Robichaud, a shareware author and chairman of the Assn. of Shareware Professionals, says about 140 authors make a full-time living from writing and publishing shareware, “with incomes ranging from $30,000 a year up to the millions.”
But things are different now than in the early days of shareware, when several authors racked up millions of dollars in sales. One of those companies, Datastorm Technologies, was so successful with its telecommunications software that the program, Procomm, became something of a standard and is now primarily a commercial product.
For many other shareware creators, success was less enduring.
Jim Button, who wrote PC-File, a shareware database, “jokes that he was the first person to make a million dollars in shareware--and the first to lose a million,” Robichaud says. “But the days are over when you can be in the right place at the right time and have lightning strike you.”
He notes that when programmer Bob Wallace wrote PC-Write, which sold for $49.95, a copy of Microsoft Word went for $400. Today, owners of earlier word processors can upgrade to MS Word, with a staggering array of features no shareware could match, for something like $149.
Robichaud believes that if shareware authors are to thrive, they must branch out into low-cost, retail software and even contract programming. Robichaud’s company, Rhode Soft Systems of Woonsocket, R.I., does all three. It sells WinPaks--collections of screen savers, icons, wallpaper and TrueType fonts for Windows--as shareware and also in discount retail outlets.
Typically, the company develops a product, covers the development costs via shareware registrations and tries to sell the program in stores, where anyone who wants it has to pay for it. Since the shareware and discount retail markets are made up of entirely different people, the company charges a different price in each place. In fact, the retail version is cheaper.
Robichaud’s company also does contract programming. Most recently it wrote “T2: The Screen Saver,” Windows screen saver modules complete with sound and animation based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Still, there are some classic shareware success stories. Take Hudgik, an inveterate collector. He wrote a program for himself 10 years ago to catalogue his 25,000 records and thought he would try offering the program as shareware, not expecting much of a pay-back.
But PC magazine gave it a rave review and he was swamped with orders. His business has grown so much that running it takes all his time. He has since hired others to do programming for him, and his company, PSG-HomeCraft of Tualatin, Ore., now sells an “Organize Your Collection” series of shareware for stamps, recordings and other items.
Thank You for Downloading
The turbulent shareware industry is booming as personal computers proliferate. Shareware lets users try a program and pay for it if they decide to keep it. (Freeware, on the other hand, never requires payment.) But with commercial software getting cheaper, competition in the shareware business is fierce. The top shareware in two categories--applications and entertainment--ranked by volume:
Applications
Rank Months on list Title Description 1. 38 ViruScan Computer virus detector 2. 1 Letterhead Kits DOS/Windows letterhead creator 3. 14 Envision Publisher DOS desktop publisher 4. 1 Desktop Paint DOS paint program 5. 2 Sky Globe Astronomy
Entertainment
Rank Months on list Title Description 1. 3 Doom Virtual reality game 2. 4 Epic Pinball Video pinball 3. 3 Xargon I Arcade-style game 4. 3 Duke Nukem 2 Arcade-style game 5. 3 Blake Stone 3-D adventure
Sources: Dorinda MacLean, industry consultant; Assn. of Shareware Professionals
