Chuck writes:
> Various attempts have been made to do things like this on the PC and have
> all ended with annoyed customers and lost sales.
>
> A PC is not like the 3000 in that ALL components are user replaceable. What
> are you going to do if the Hard Drive or other component you depend on
fails
> and is replaced?
>
> If you try this I will bet money you WILL lose customers. I know I would
not
> buy your product if it implemented a time bomb like this.
The true choice lies between losing a few sales to people who are annoyed by
the approach and losing a great number of sales due to piracy. Given that
choice, I don't think that there's any contest.
However, in trade-off and to the users' advantage, we will be able to put the
software packages up on the internet, just as we do now with QCTerm, and
those people who do elect to purchase the products will be able to download
the newest version at their leisures, with no upgrade fee. The user will be
able to upgrade their version of the software as often as they wish, just as
they do with QCTerm. An "upgrade" fee -- really a replacement fee -- will be
charged only when the user retires his PC. The license for the software will
reside with the PC.
This form of registration is meant to be conducted completely transparently
over the internet, as simply and conveniently as possible. The unique
identifier will be transmitted to us, where it will be encrypted and then
transferred back to the PC, to be read from a completely visible file called
something like "license.txt". Because we're only charging between $50 to $99
for these products, the entire transaction, purchase and registration, has to
be made extremely simple and automatic.
The licensing method will be fully explained on the web page. If a user finds
any of this irritating, he won't purchase the product, but I don't think that
that will be the general reaction.
Wirt Atmar
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