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אלכס מספר שמצא סידרה של אתרים כאלה בהם כמות ההורדות של התוכנה של WEBIS היא פשוט שלוש פעמים כמות ההורדות של התוכנה מהאתר הרשמי. הדבר מגוחך לחלוטין, במחשבה שכל התוכנות של WEBIS נמכרות במחירים בין $9 ו-$30, מחיר לגמרי הגיוני, ושכולם ניתנות להורדה בגירסאות ניסוי בכדי שלא נשקיע כסף לפני שיודעים שנשתמש בתוכנה.
הוא מציין שבסופו של דבר, האתרים הללו מוצצים את הדם של עצמם ושל המשתמשים שלהם, כי הם הורגים את החברות אשר יוצרות את התוכנות אותן הם מחלקים באופן לא חוקי. הדבר הזה אמיתי במיוחד בשוק הפוקט פיסי, בו התוכנות נמכרות במחירים נמוכים מאוד ומנסים לשחק על הכמויות של רכישות. כשאין כמויות, אין הכנסות שיכולות להחזיק את החברה.
תסתכלו על המכשירים שלכם, וקרוב לודאי תמצאו משהו של WEBIS: זה יכול להיות Pocket Informant, Webis Mail, Flexwallet או VoiceMinder (או אחרים), ומי שמשתמש בתוכנות הללו בטח לא יכול לדמיין את עצמו בלי בית תוכנה כמו WEBIS מאחוריו. לכן אלכס מבקש מכולם שלא יתנו יד לזה ותעבדו עם תוכנה מקורית לצרכים שלכם.
אני חושב שהמכתב חשוב, נכתב בצורה מושלמת, והוא קריאה כדאית לכולנו. לכן אני משחזר אותו כלשונו בעמוד הכתבה.
ובכל זאת, המקור בבלוג של אלכס באתר של WEBIS.
Piracy is a huge issue for the software industry, but to be quite honest its nowhere near as huge as what the RIAA and MPAA and SBA make it out to be. 50% or more of the software pirated would never have been purchased in the first place. But lets talk a bit more personally here.
Myself and a band of software devs here have found a *very* large pirate warez site which I will not link to. They have cracks for almost everything imaginable. They have our software on there with download ratios in the TENS of THOUSANDS. In many cases I find more downloads of our software on the warez site than I see on our own download servers. I've calculated that even if we only lost 10% of those downloads that could have been sales its a pretty major hit.
The fact is that companies like ours and most other WinMobile devs operate on a shoestring budget. Most of our software sells at a break-even point, some at a loss until it breaks even 2-4 years after introduction. For the amount of money I've "lost" I could have *easily* created a Pocket Informant for Desktop or BlackBerry or heck other major applications or improvements. I could have hired an extremely high paid developer for a year or two averagely paid ones. For a company that has only 3 full time developers that's a fairly major loss.
The fact is that piracy hurts those who pirate. They want our software obviously. Some just use it for a "test", but we offer a two week trial and with a bit of work you can probably get 2-3 months free usage of our products a year. And we don't sell for a large amount of money. Just wait and you can usually get our software for a steal - without actually stealing. I don't think paying $9.95 is such a huge issue if you need an app like VoiceMinder. Its barely a lunch and drink. But the reason piracy hurts those who pirate is because they are like vampires slowly killing the company that they are sucking the applications off of.
Who here would care if there was never a VoiceMinder, FlexWallet, FlexMail, or Pocket Informant upgrade again? I have personally had fleeting thoughts of selling WebIS or just closing it down because even as this market has grown the software market has not and while I'm not naive enough to think its *all* about piracy, I know that it just makes me depressed. And no, we're not closing down and yes there will be major upgrades of everything. And yes, piracy has been part of the software business from the very beginning but that doesn't mean I can't ask you to stop.
And therein lies my plea to you. If you actually use our software please pay for it. When you don't you personally are contributing to the financial downfall of a bunch of people who are working hard to make good quality software for you. If you don't want to think of piracy as theft, think of it as stiffing us. Would you stiff the waiter of a tip? How about the guy who built your house? How about the plumber or the electrician? Or the Taxi cab driver? And yes, software does cost money to make. I pay electric bills, Microsoft dues, travel expenses to meet with MS devs, trade shows, advertising, not to mention salaries. So if you wouldn't stiff the waiter at your favorite restaurant his 15% (or 10% if you're money concious) tip, why stiff us the few bucks we ask?
WebIS has always been extremely liberal in our licensing as well. We don't use activation (we've thought about it), we don't lock our license to your username, we don't do anything to make licensing hard. We let you run our software on as many devices that you personally use and we use the honor system. Heck, we even make 2-3 versions of our software in most cases and let you pay for one and get them all.
So that's all. Hope you guys have a great day!
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Alex Kac, CEO/Founder
Innovation in Personal and Business Information Management
http://www.pocketinformant.com/
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