Ad Supported Software

July 28, 2006 8:55 AM

Ad Supported Software It started with email, and now it's everything from IM, maps and photo galleries. But, free network management software? Can this work?
posted by tboz (8 comments total)

Wow, this hotmail thing looks pretty cool!
posted by thirteenkiller at 9:29 AM on July 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Can this work?

It didn't seem to help the Dodge Neon...
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:56 AM on July 28, 2006

Can free Pepsi be far behind?!
posted by shoepal at 10:00 AM on July 28, 2006

Arguably all of your examples besides Spiceworks are ad-supported services, not just software. And was Hotmail (or even some online email) really the first ad-supported service?
posted by Plutor at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2006

if a company's budget is too tight to purchase network management software, isn't it conceivable that said company would have less than 100% valid licensing for software on their network? and, if that's true, couldn't spiceworks notify software manufacturers in exchange for a cut of the money they would get from suing companies with licensing issues? obviously, they spiceworks would have to wait until they had a large enough user base first because everyone would stop using it once the lawsuits started.
posted by snofoam at 11:51 AM on July 28, 2006

everyone would stop using it once the lawsuits started

I think you underestimate the shortsightedness of the kind of company that would be using ad-supported infrastructure in the first place.
posted by hattifattener at 12:01 PM on July 28, 2006

I thought the link for email in the OP would go to the old, ad-supported version of Eudora.
posted by EiderDuck at 12:27 PM on July 28, 2006

Can this work?

It didn't seem to help the Dodge Neon...

See, it's not an ad for Spiceworks, so I'm not sure your comparison is entirely accurate. Ad-supported software evidently did work for some companies, so we'll see where this goes.
posted by hoborg at 12:37 PM on July 28, 2006