Keep it Simple

Does the free software model really work? Is it a viable marketing tool? It has certainly been used successfully for some well known open source products but how well does it work in the Lotus Notes market... and so a marketing experiment begins. I will be posting updates and additional thoughts in this blog...here is the pitch from a recent newsletter:

PDQ Portal (http://www.pdqportal.com)

I've spent a number of years developing this Content Management system. Over numerous projects I added more features to make it do everything I needed. I added every tool I could think of to web site development faster. I made it flexible so that it could create PDF's from data and images and could even send and receive faxes.

But I also made it simple so that just about any application could be created with some basic HTML knowledge and some @formulas.

And now I'm giving it away...

No, it's not old technology, it uses the very latest JavaScript libraries (ExtJS) and is entirely Ajax based. I'm giving it away because I want more people to use it. I've seen the power of a product community and the open source model both for support and for development and I want to encourage other developers to use it in their projects.

To have a successful product these days it helps to have a community. In the short time I've started this program, I have received generous assistance from a number of people around the world who, when they have found a problem have taken the time to sent me complete solutions.

I still have to pay the bills though,  so there is another paid version of the product, although the only difference is in the number of servers it can be installed on. However, even the paid version is not expensive. I usually make a living from helping clients to get it up and running and by creating vertical market applications with it.

So far the feedback has been very positive. While most downloads are for the free version, the support and encouragement from all is very rewarding.


Alan Lawson