Unnecessary cost of software distribution...
Competition; you need to create it faster, with better quality and beat the competition to market. The amount of time it takes to get a product to market has ruined many product sales. Whether you are an ISV or a single developer working on that unique idea you need to be competitive and nimble. Not only are the logistics of producing software keeping you up at night, your operation costs are sky rocketing or if you are the single developer maintaining your day job continues to eat into your ability to produce and sell your own product.

The unnecessary cost of distributing software affects both the time to market and the overall bottom line.

Generally, releasing software works like this. You create a good computer program, good enough that people will pay for it. Then you split this program into two versions. One of these is the unregistered (or demo) version, which is limited in some way. For example, the demo of Doom only lets you play 1/3 of the total levels. Some programs disable the save feature. Others stop working after a period of time (like a month). The demo is the version that is distributed over the net, generally for free, however it is the most expensive edition to create. The other version is the full version, the complete program. It is not limited in any way and everything the program should be able to do is there. This is what the user who pays gets access too. Sometimes the full version is obtained by entering some sort of password into the demo version. Sometimes the full version is mailed to the user on cd. There's a variety of different ways to get the full version in the hands of the user. Often times software will come in multiple editions. Standard editions tend to be very affordable and meet the needs of the majority. When a user has more advanced need there is usually a profession or an enterprise edition. These are also costly to develop and maintain. Once the multiple editions are ready, the demo edition is distributed as widely as possible. It's sent to online services, placed on the Internet (and hopefully a web site) for download, and sent to magazines for inclusion on CD-ROMs. Users find it and try it out. If they like it, they pay for the full version, which is promptly sent to them.

So what is the issue? Developers are creating the editions including the demos. Let's just be honest for one second, developers get paid a lot of money for producing software. Would you continue to pay a developer their current salary if they stopped developing and instead only wrote knowledge base articles? Of course not! Developers should do what they do best. Developers should write code that makes money. 20 to 40 percent of a developers time can be spent on managing and maintaining multiple editions of a single product. Evaluation software is difficult to define up front, and costly to wait until the end. New products take longer to get to market. The solution? Edition Creator!

Flexibility in product offerings without code changes

--- Generate Evaluations that can be defined by the product manager, a consultant, supprt or just about anyone.

--- Create alternative pricing models (leasing, per use, etc...)

--- Decreasing your time to market, decreasing your overhead cost all while increasing sales can only be accomplished by using the correct tools. Just like it is not cost effective to write your own reporting engine or installation tool, creating multiple editions can be accomplished with the ease of point and click.

Other benefits...

-- More time (or less time to market)

-- better quality in the software's core functionality.

-- Less testing required

-- Less support costs

-- More flexibility without code changes. Extend trial editions for those really big customers. Ship multiple editions at one time so that the can evaluate the right product for their needs. Create a leasing model with reoccurrig revenue.

-- You decide what goes into what edition. You decide what makes an evaluation. You decide period. No need to wait for coding changes, no need to fill out that change request form, simply pick the feature you want enabled for a given edition and compile.