I suspect that almost eberyone with a PC has WinZip somewhere. And that, like me, when they click on a .zip archive or want to add something to a .zip they have to click “use evaluation version” which comes with the splash screen.
I suppose some people fork up the money for the non trial version, but to me, it looks as if all the features I would ever need is there. I put up with the nagging, but what’s the point? What’s in it for WinZip? Or WinRAR or any other of those makers of something that is essentially freeware.
You forget about corporate customers who like to make everything nice and legit. I have consulting for companies that have bout 5000, 10000, and 20,000 seat licenses because they like it and need it.
The business plan is smart. If it were crippleware, many users would never get attached to it. They wait for corporate customers to pay because that is the first unzipping app that leaps to users minds. The private shareware market is small anyway and the dynamics of getting people to pay for extra functionality after a trial period is questionable.
I’d guess sales are mostly to corporate customers. We have a multi-user license where I work. The pricing is pretty small for a corporate IT budget, and keeps the BSA off their backs.
[QUOTE=The Gaspode]
I suspect that almost eberyone with a PC has WinZip somewhere. And that, like me, when they click on a .zip archive or want to add something to a .zip they have to click “use evaluation version” which comes with the splash screen.QUOTE]If all you’re using WinZip for is .zip files, Windows XP has support for them built in; you don’t need the commercial application. Of course, WinZip has been around for a lot longer than XP, so perhaps the case for it was stronger in the past, but it still offers a lot that XP doesn’t.
As to why you should register software trials that you use, it’s simply an honour system. If you want to rip off the software vendor, they’re making it easy for you. Think of it as a test of your integrity.
The built-in support for zip files is pretty weak, though. It tries to look like a regular Explorer window, but doesn’t have all the drag-n-drop support you’d expect from such a window, and it doesn’t have half the features of WinZip or WinRAR.
Personally, I ponied up the $30 for WinAce, as it can handle all the compression schemes out there. I don’t think it starts out as crippleware but I believe it does have a 30-day limit.
Whatever happened to pkzip? I remember using that a lot 10 or 15 years ago.
You might want to check out TUG Zip. It’s another freeware zip utility and, from what I can tell, it has all the features of 7-Zip with a couple more formats.
Most useful software used to be like WinZip: unlimited use, but pay not to be bothered. WinZip goes back at least to 1993, which in the PC world is the dark ages.
I paid for WinZip back then, and I have been using it ever since. They never charge you again once you’ve paid. Mebbe it’s not as full-featured as everything else these days, but once you get used to something…