Shareware

History

The term shareware was coined by Bob Wallace to describe his word processor PC-Write in the mid-1980s. Wallace came up with the name that stuck, but many consider the "fathers" of the shareware marketing model to be Jim "Button" Knopf and Andrew Fluegelman. Their coordinated offerings of PC-File (database) and PC-Talk (telecommunications) programs, respectively, pre-dated PC-Write by several months. Button referred to his distribution method as "user supported software," and Fluegelman called his freeware. Among the three of them, they clearly established shareware as a viable software marketing method. Via the shareware model, PC-File and PC-Talk made Button and Fluegelman millionaires.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, shareware software was widely distributed over bulletin board systems globally. Popular software, especially games and compression utilities, was rapidly passed along between bulletin boards. The market naturally pruned off less popular software for many reasons, including the cost of local and long distance modem telephone calls, the time required to transfer files, the network effect of popular software being more readily available, and the isolation of individual bulletin board systems. Coupled with the difficulty to create software at the time, the market seemed composed only of high quality, popular works.

As more individuals discovered the Internet during the early and mid 1990s, most of these barriers were reduced. Niche market software was more accessible. Less popular and obscure software could be distributed from anywhere on the Internet rather than waiting to be passed through countless isolated systems. Without the limiting factors in place, the perceived number of software titles exploded while the perceived quality plummeted.

During the late 1990s, search engines and common distribution hubs further smashed the distribution barriers. A new generation of software creation tools --Rapid Application Development -- enabled the creation of major titles in less time and allowed inexperienced programmers to create minor software titles in a matter of hours. Hundreds of shareware titles were created every month. It became difficult to prune the low quality shareware software from the gems.

During the early 2000s, a new way to filter the software became available. Major download sites began to rank titles based on quality, feedback, and downloads. Popular software was sorted to the top of the list. Blogs and online forums further enabled individuals to spread news about titles they like. With this additional pruning in place, consumers can more easily find quality shareware products while still preserving the ability to find obscure and niche software.

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