Department of Free and PLM

Oleg,
This is a very interesting article. I think the experience with the Times is more about the change in process than anything else. The registration did not require money but people were still unwilling to fill out the form. It really comes down to a value exchange. Is the information they would have to provide worth gaining access to the website. Given the fact that there are numerous sites that provide news without requiring registration most people chose to go elsewhere. This was obviously a big miscalculation by the Times but is not necessarily an indictment of “FREE”. As I discussed in my blog “Free Software Tomorrow” http://www.zerowait-state.com/blog/263-plm-perspective-free-plm-software-tomorrow- Pricing can definitely hinder adoption but if the value is there pricing should matter . If the Times had offered something extra for registering they might have done better. People don’t mind sharing information or even paying for something if there is a clear value win for them.

You said it right…. FREE is very powerful and dangerous at the same time… yahoo did the same thing couple of years back by asking money for pop3, smtp access and they lost huge user base.
In PLM it is more dangerous… you might get free PLM but you will not get free support. Even if customer go for this free PLM to save initial license investments what if the vendor do the same thing which thetimes did. PLM holds complicated and valuable data structures and it is not easy to migrate to other PLM.
So one should avoid FREE PLM until it is not full open source 

Roberto, Thanks for such an interesting association :). So, what danger do you see in “free PLM candy”? ;). Best, Oleg

I agree with Sporter. Pricing may hinder adoption but the value proposition calculation should be able to demonstrate the value of a product (any product).
To Avinash: The Open Source model for PLM and ERP relies on the supplier of the product essentially guaranteeing that they will continue to offer the product in the same way into the future. In both of these complex areas you can download fully featured core products that will support your work processes and it will cost you nothing in external payments. Naturally if you want help putting it together/implmenting or want to stay up with the latest enhancements or want access to “premium” feature sets then you will have to pay something for that. As far as a “free” system suddenly requiring users to pay for it, as you suggest could happen, is that any different from an existing PLM vendor who charges licence fees potentially doubling their licence costs without warning? I would suggest that neither is likely to happen these days and the results in both cases would be disasterous for the solution provider.

Roberto, agree 100% with your 1-2-3. I definitely see that the time of ‘free trials’ is over. This is especially true for types of software that requires an additional investment by a customer (implementation, services etc.). thanks for commenting! Oleg