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Friday, November 26, 2004
The Concept X7 Sales Prevention Team
I heard about Concept X7 on the TabletPCBuzz forum. It sounded like a cross between MindManager, GoBinder, and OneNote. I visited the Web page to check it out and was impressed, especially by the screen shots. However, I am convinced that the developer must employ a “sales prevention team.” Why? Here are the problems I experienced.
Problem #1: The Price. The program sells for $298. What?! Okay, maybe I’d pay this much for Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop, but few programs are worth this much. GoBinder is only $79.95. OneNote is $99.95. MindManager X5 is $199 (and worth every penny). Well, fortunately, I thought, they offer a trial version of the program.
Problem #2: Download Difficulty. When I clicked on the Trial Version link, the Web page asked me for my e-mail address, promising to send me the download instructions by e-mail. This isn’t that unusual, so I entered my address and clicked on the “Send” button, thinking an autoresponder would automatically send me the information. No such luck. I never received the download instructions. I checked the TabletPCBuzz forum again. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one with this problem. Fortunately, someone posted a link to the download page. I then downloaded the program.
Problem #3: Crippleware. Beware, the trial version is not the full-featured version. It’s crippled. Before the installation started, the program displayed the following dialog box:
Obviously, several features are disabled. So, I wrote to the developers and asked for a full-featured copy of the software. (More about that in a moment.) I went ahead and installed the trial software. The installation went without a hitch—or so I thought.
Problem #4: Deadware. I then tried to run the program. I received the following message (click on the image to see the dialog box in actual size):
Note that the program has died. It’s not responding. I tried rebooting my computer. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing worked. I spent way more time on this that I should have. I went back to the TabletPCBuzz forum and posted my results. I was not the only one who experienced this problem. At least, it’s not my system.
Problem #5: Marketing Stupidity. I was still hopeful that I could get the full-featured version of the program running. Today, I received an e-mail message from Alexandra Han of SoftwareForAll, the site where I downloaded the program. Here’s the text of the message. (I’m not making this up.)
Sorry, no fully funcitional copy of any softwares available for trial usage, if you want a fully functional copy, you will have to pay the registration fee.
Best regards
Alexandra Han
Softforall Technology
webmaster@softforall.com
http://www.softforall.com
Amazing. Let’s think this through. Granted, I don’t have the most popular blog on the planet. But I get about 2,000 readers a week. That’s a lot of prospects. Wouldn’t it make sense to provide a free copy to me in the hopes that I would write a positive review and influence my readers to buy the software? Instead, Alexandra tells me I have to buy a copy.
This is what you call “pennywise and pound foolish.” I mean, the software doesn’t even have a cost associated with it. News flash: It’s a digital download. It would have cost her company nothing. Instead, she ticked me off enough that I am spending my Thanksgiving morning writing a negative review of the product.
Someone may argue that I can’t hold the developer (WebPlanet) responsible for the lame response of the distributor (SoftForAll). On the contrary. The developer picked this distributor. He also chose not to send me the download instructions. Regardless, I’ve completely lost interest in this software. Rather than making me more productive—as the developer promised—I’ve wasted several hours trying to get it to run. I’ve now uninstalled it. Good riddens!
November 26, 2004 at 12:05 AM in Cool Software, TabletPC | Permalink
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Comments
Michael:
FWIW, I did an evaluation of this software a while back (I wrote directly to the developer, BTW) and while it has a lot of promise, it's definitely not ready for prime time. The program has a lot of power but a clumsy UI with a lot of poorly translated German text.
It also is somewhat unstable, often grabbing what seemed like an awfully large chunk of system resources and memory.
All of that aside, I completely understand and sympathize with your frustrations. I had a similar experience with another developer just this week and decided not to review the software, interesting though it appeared, because their attitude really turned me off.
I've been reviewing software for nearly 25 years and it is not unreasonable to expect a reviewer's license if you have a decent audience to expose the product to. FWIW, my Office Weblog alone is attracting nearly 50K readers each month these days. And that doesn't include the Tablet PC blog audience or the OfficeZealot crowd.
As you know, I am, in "real life" the marketing manager for VanDyke Software and I have never denied a legitimate request for a reviewer's license (and trust me, your blog is definitely a legitimate vehicle for promoting productivity tools).
Their loss, as far as I'm concerned. I know you would have done a fine job of delving into what their application is capable of doing and would have done your usual fine job documenting your experience.
Happy Thansksgiving pal.
Posted by: Marc Orchant | Nov 25, 2004 3:16:23 PM
Thanks, Marc. I appreciate your support. Maybe it was best that I didn't get it running. Oh well. I am always amazed at how bad some people's marketing instincts are.
Posted by: Michael Hyatt | Nov 25, 2004 3:53:12 PM
Think of how much time you've saved me and the rest of your readers. Now I don't even have to bother evaluating this program. Thanks
Posted by: Jim McGee | Nov 25, 2004 7:53:09 PM
On the screenshots-page http://www.webplanet.com/x7_screenshots.html they even forgot to link some screenshots to see them in 1:1...
Posted by: Uwe Keim | Nov 25, 2004 9:13:32 PM
Related:
http://www.bigbizblog.com/archives/2004/11/25/how-not-to-blog-in-business/
Posted by: Thomas | Nov 26, 2004 1:40:23 AM
Hi Michael. I'm afraid your experience isn't that unusual - I'm a software reviewer for various UK print magazines and that attitude (or worse) is something I encounter all the time.
Something that happens a lot when I'm reviewing software is that for whatever reason, the program doesn't work. Could be a duff pre-release version, a dodgy installer, a conflict with something in Windows, stupidity on my part... whatever. And while it's always tempting to phone up the PRs and wave the journalist card, I prefer to contact tech support as Just Another Customer. That way I get an indication of how the firm really acts when it doesn't feel the need to impress.
Last month, I encountered a "program crashes on load every time" problem with an ecommerce package, which I was reviewing for a mag with 20,000ish readers. So I popped along to their tech support site, registered to access the support forum, and discovered that I couldn't view the hundreds of support threads because they were only open to the original poster. So an opportunity to solve my problem without involving a human being was immediately closed off.
Undeterred, I posted a new message. I checked back 24 hours later. No reply. Another 24 hours. No reply. I finally got a reply after eight days. Bear in mind that this is a support forum for registered customers - businesses who've shelled out a few hundred pounds on this package, not people using the demo. I replied, and it took 3 days to get another response. After two weeks, I was no nearer finding out how to fix the problem - so in the end, that's what I wrote about in my review.
I'd like to be positive here and say most firms' tech support is great and that my example is unrepresentative, but I'd be lying. I'm currently waiting for a support tech to fix a login problem with a web based program - a support ticket I raised two months ago...
Posted by: Gary Marshall | Nov 26, 2004 2:17:46 AM
Michael,
I am a software developer and your blog was mentioned among some of my colleagues, many of which are single-person companies like myself.
There is one point you made that I must disagree with. Digital downloads do cost money. Free file hosting went away several years ago with the dot-com hype. My company, like most, pays for file hosting. Although the cost of a single download is virtually nill, you have to consider that less than 1% of all downloads end up in a sale. If we assume a download is 3 MB, multiply that by 100 and you have 300 MB used resulting in one sale. The typical cost for 1 GB of bandwidth is somewhere between $2 to $5. This is still negligible, but certainly not free.
A second point I'd like to make is that piracy is still very rampant in every part of the world. It is not always wise for a software developer to give out the full version of their software or a registration key to everyone that asks. Anyone can claim to be a software reviewer. It would be very bad news for the developer if a registration key ends up on a crack/serials site.
Most software pirates do not realize that software developers know what the pirates are doing. It is not unusual for a software developer to scan known pirate sites for illegal copies of their software. Although some sites are difficult shut down by legal means, serials and cracks can be quickly made ineffective by changing the software.
Quite often I receive technical support requests from dimwitted users who ask for help while using an illegal copy of my software. That is essentially the same as a thief stealing your car, and then coming back to you and asking for gasoline.
I do agree with the majority of your article, but I hope this will shed some light to the developer's point of view.
Posted by: Jerry Wang | Nov 26, 2004 3:02:47 AM
Jerry, thanks for making your points. It would have been easy, however, for them to verify that I do, in fact, have a blog that reviews software. Also, with regard to the cost involved with digital downloads, you are correct. There is a small cost. But all marketing costs something, and this is the cheapest form of marketing. (Keep in mind that I am a book publisher. Sending out review copies is the cheapest form of marketing we do, too. But, unlike a digital download, we have the cost of manufacturing the book, postage, and all the labor involved. So compared to this, a digital download is a bargain.)
Posted by: Michael Hyatt | Nov 26, 2004 6:46:36 AM
Michael (and Jerry): As someone on both sides of this issue (I am a reviewer and also work for a SW company and am the person responsible for isssuing reviewer's licenses), I have to agree with Michael. The piracy issue, severe as it is for those of us who provide free trial downloads, doesn't really come into play here.
It's easy enough to validate a potential reviewer's credentials. It takes a few minutes but it's not difficult in this day of search engines.
And you're right Michael. Of all the marketing tools available, giving out review copies remains one of the cheapest and most effective way to promote your products.
Finally, I try to always make a point of acknowledging the quality of the support experience in my reviews. Service after the sale, whether it's a $25 shareware app or an expensive e-commerce solution is critical and I want to make recommendations that will give my readers a solid solution to a particular problem.
I agree with Gary that there a lot of companies that don't get this right but I also think it's important to recognize those that do place a premium on supporting their customers (and evaluators) well.
Posted by: Marc Orchant | Nov 26, 2004 7:54:10 AM
2000 visitors per week, on a blog that seems fairly well targetted? You can review my stuff any time.
If I may comment, one of the more valid points you make is that many, many software companies don't know how to market. Themslves or their products and I include myself in that category. Marketing is something of a black art and for most of us we only find out what works the hard way.
With regard to the piracy problem. Sorry to disagree with other contributors. For a small software company, piracy is a very, very big issue and one that people like me spend a lot of our time nowadays trying to combat, and on very limited resources. I can give you the name of one company that I regularly buy from, but getting the stuff registered is a nightmare.
The person who wrote the software is trying to protect his investment, that's all, and unless you have experienced a fully fledged hacking attack, which can almost put you out of business overnight, then I don't think you an understand what it means, when you see your creation apparently going down the tubes.
Good article though, with lots of useful things to consider. Your blog is on my drive by list.
Posted by: Allen Woods | Nov 26, 2004 11:19:14 AM
Thanks for sharing your experience. As a software developer I always find it useful to read stories like these. Making the right call on free trials can be difficult (are they right for every type of software? should they go to reviewers or everyone? on what conditions?), but antagonizing potential customers is always a bad idea.
My own "similarly annoying" experience was with IBM; their team is so specialized that one rep couldn't sell me both an upgrade and a second copy -- and neither of the two reps would let me buy online or by phone. Ironically the marketing and free trial were easy -- it was just difficult to actually purchase the software. http://bobpritchett.com/blog/posts/205.aspx
Posted by: Bob Pritchett | Nov 26, 2004 11:26:36 AM
Hello,
I'm a developer myself, and I have a few comments...
1) SoftForAll is not a distributor,they are an affiliate site. They get a cut of every sale that goes through them, but they don't make the sale themselves - the registration service does.
They can't give you a full copy of the program, even if they wanted to (unless, of course, they purchased one themselves and gave it to you). Of course, what they should have done is tell you *that* instead of answering as if they could give you a review copy, but weren't interested in doing so.
Even if you gave the program a glowing review, unless you linked to their site instead of the developer's site, they'd never get a cent out of it (they might have an special arrangement for that particular program but I really doubt so).
If you asked the developer (which does have a direct interest in the result), he'd probably be much more likely to send you a full copy.
2) Downloads.
I don't like giving my e-mail to download trial software, myself, but asking for it is still common.
Their response was probably trapped in an anti-spam filter - that is not very uncommon these days. I've tried to talk to a couple of people lately and they didn't even know that their ISP was bouncing e-mails from clients based on an awful domain list (which charges US$50 to remove IPs).
Seems a bit silly on their side to require the e-mail and them offer it for download elsewhere without restrictions...
Unfortunately requiring an e-mail address for downloads is not an uncommon advice from marketers - they love the ability to try to convince you to buy later, even if you might skip the program altogether because of it.
Posted by: Luiz Marques | Nov 26, 2004 2:22:09 PM
In a different culture, things are different too:
A boring Application?
Just for your entertainment :-)
Posted by: Kim Gammelgård | Nov 26, 2004 9:03:08 PM
Dear reader,
this information is not up to date. A new rel. of CONCEPT X7 was launched in the first week of 2005. You can find the new release online.
Regards
Dieter Hesse
CEO
Webplanet Corporation
Posted by: Dieter Hesse | Jan 21, 2005 7:57:49 AM
