[sac-board] Re: Trip to NASP

Having had experience with writing/selling/distributing software, and all of
the ramifications, you may want to think about some topics I've listed
below.  I don't want to rain on your parade, but just wanted to make sure
that the lessons I've learned might be beneficial to you.....just something
to think about as you move forward.

1. The software will run perfectly on 90%-95% of your customer's computers.
How are you going to handle some sort of help desk, or help phone number
where those 5%-10% can get help?  Who's phone number(s) are you going to
include with the disk?

2. The software will invariably cause some computers to crash and not able
to come back. i.e. some combinations of O/S, 3rd party programs already
installed, maveric .DLL's, etc turn out to be incompatable with your
software.  How are you going to handle that, and in today's climate of
litigate first and ask questions later, are you even remotely prepared for
such an event? Is the software author prepared for that event?  I realize
the chance of that happening is remote, but does have some finite
probability just the same.

3. These 5%-10%, that can't get the software to run, or their computer has
crashed as a result of the software and they can't get it back, will be very
vocal *BAD* word-of-mouth advertising if you can't satisfy them.  How are
you going to handle that?

4. If you use copyrighted material on the disk, even from club members,
you'll probably want to get a signed release from them just the same.  If
the club member dies, the club members estate owns the copyrights, and they
could demand payment for the copyrighted material you used, and which they
(the eventual owners of the estate) now own.

The only reason I mention any of this is that I've lived it.  ....just my
$0.02.  I hope it all works out just the same.

/Bob 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: AJ Crayon [mailto:acrayon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 10:09 PM
> To: sac-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [sac-board] Re: Trip to NASP
> 
> 
> 
> My question about all of this is will the person that wrote 
> the program
> be willing for us to include his software on the CD and us to 
> charge for
> it - along with all the other files discussed?
> 
> Don't be mislead by the question as I'm all for providing the
> information Steve has described.
> 
> aj

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