Technology, Support, and News Forum

[Cornflake Profile]

Yeah, as many people who have been here a while will remember the program was free. What was added that could justify adding a price tag? Did you just need money to continue development? Or maybe enough features you feel it should no longer bee a free download?

I could understand needing financial support but I feel bad for people who need a simple GUI to rename / or change the default OS in the BCD list having to shell out a credit card number to do it without the command console. I bet a lot of people turn away and look for free or open source alternatives to BCD editing.

[kd1966 Profile YIM]

Tell you what; go out and do a google search for free bcd editing programs and see how many potential "drive-by" sites you are shown. #1 on the list (For me anyhow) as to why anyone would/could/should pay for this program is the fact you are getting LEGIT software, known to be malware/spyware free, and with support of the authors.

I'd much rather shell out ~$9 for a known working program that comes with its own website for support than to take my chances on any questionable freebie that was probably reverse engineered in order to add whatever malware kit that's going these days.

/

[kanaloa]

I'd say the fact VBP was free for over two years was a very generous offer on the part of the folks who spent hours, weeks, and months developing it. Over 2,000,000 folks downloaded it.

The reason it has become a commercial application is because we hope to develop VBP into a much more powerful tool in the future. In fact, we're well under way on that venture. Plus we want to expand our software portfolio to include other useful applications. These things take time and resources, money's one of them. Something and someone has to pay for the domains, store, and hosting fees - and quite frankly, Advertising revenue in this economy isn't cutting it. Going commercial was the last option, and I personally stand by it.

I think the fact we still offer unlimited free support is a great benefit to go along with the application; and that a price of under $10 is very reasonable. Other commercial boot managers go for up to $30. Sure there are free applications, but none will come with the same support of quality guarantee we offer.

[scwritinglady Profile Website]

Something and someone has to pay for the domains, store, and hosting fees - and quite frankly, Advertising revenue in this economy isn't cutting it. Going commercial was the last option, and I personally stand by it.

Agreed. A website of Pro's size is not cheap to run. Not to mention the huge cost of procuring a security certificate for the software. I know it's nice to offer things for free, but I think charging (a very nominal!) fee for VBP after two years is quite fair.

[kd1966 Profile YIM]

I may be a bit prejudiced on this, as I had a weee part in the testing of VBPro, but at the time I was astonished that it was being offered for free, when there was basically NOTHING else out there with the quality and support. Of course, I realize it is not the be-all/end-all of programs and as such should not command an exorbitant price-tag. That being said, a sub $10 price for a VERY USEFUL program in my very extremely humble opinion is not too shabby............

[Xstream Profile]

IMO, that small of a price is certainly not too much to ask. Very reasonable.

[Cornflake Profile]

Thanks for the replies

I also think the price tag is reasonable considering the software's reliability, and it's great if it will help PRO-net and it's ventures to keep going. However I've been seeing a theme where more and more people are charging for software; I think the PC market is in the midst of a change. The economy is effecting all areas of life but IMO most people use it as an excuse -- whether it be to charge more for things, or take less common "niche" things off the market and only offer more mainstream lower-quality products.

The latter part of my last paragraph was more of a rant on companies as a whole and not directed towards you guys

[jbullard]

Well as the lead developer of VBP I was not 100% sold on the idea of commercializing the application. However, now that we have started charging for VBP it seems many doors have started opening for us. Aside from that we can focus our attention more on software engineering as a whole and purchase things that may help us promote, design, or develop applications. It will also help us send our staff members to technology events that we want representation at. There are way too many things to list what we can do with this type of revenue stream and in the end it all makes PRO and better place.

[kanaloa]

Thanks for the input everyone. We'll consider this a closed issue now.