On Wed, 22 Feb 1995 16:43:51 GMT David Chapin <[log in to unmask]> said:
>With the closing of GATECH and the flood on the cybernet of old mailing
>lists in need of a new home, I wonder if Eric Thomas and other
>commercial mailing list service companies would consider the following
>idea:
>
> Offer a 6 months free trial period for new non-commercial mailing
> lists.
There is just one problem: free trials are always abused. For instance,
we usually offer free trial periods for customers who want to purchase a
perpetual license. Well, it took about 3 months for us to get the first
of a long series of messages of the type:
Dear L-Soft,
Our management has decided to buy a copy of LISTSERV. The PO# is XXXX.
However we would like to start with the free 90-day trial mentioned in
the list of license types in the contracts. We understand that this
includes free maintenance. You can invoice us now if you want because
we have already decided to buy the software.
Trial licenses were introduced mostly for corporate customers who want to
know if LISTSERV can be interfaced to their homebrew internal mail
system. Well, we can't really answer that question, one just has to try
it out. The cost to us of helping these customers adapt/configure
LISTSERV for such environments is included in the corporate prices. It's
not included in the academic prices. People who've been running LISTSERV
for 5 years and have 100 lists don't need a free trial, they need a
discounted price. But naturally when they see the trial option on the
contract, they want to tick the checkbox *and* keep the discount.
We solved that problem by applying the maintenance retroactively from the
date of initial delivery if the customer does purchase the software after
the trial. That is, during the trial period you can decide that you don't
want the software after all, and you don't owe us anything. If you do
keep it, you pay for the support you received during the trial period.
Suddenly people weren't interested in trial copies any more :-)
For the mailing list service, the issue is the same. If a corporate
customer wants a free trial of the "EASE Premium" service, we can
probably arrange it. Corporate sites are new to the Internet and
genuinely need a trial to better understand what all these glossies are
about. People who've been running a list on LISTSERV for 3 years don't
need a free trial, they already know what the software can do. They may
need a free ride to get organized in terms of collecting contributions
from members or finding a sponsor or whatever, but that's not a "trial".
At least, it's not a trial of the software :-)
Anyway, the problem with free rides is that they aren't free. At some
point someone is going to have to pay for them. It wouldn't be fair to
make people who paid from day one contribute to your free ride, so in all
likelihood you're the one who's going to be paying for it... It would be
some sort of arrangement where you don't pay during the first 3 months,
and afterwards you pay a higher price to compensate for the free ride.
And naturally there would be rules preventing abuse - we certainly
wouldn't want each list member to stand up in turn and ask for a free
trial for the same list :-)
Eric
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