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Farhad Manjoo’s excellent column in Fast Company explores the pitfalls of “free”, which is fascinating to us as we provide for our client’s current and future technology needs. 

“The Linux operating system is free, however netbooks running Windows outsell Linux 9 to one. Why? A mere savings of about $20.00 (Linux) saddles customers with a machine that does much less” (hardly free over the long haul). 

“Free” often costs too much, weighed down with hassles that we are eventually all happy to pay ‘a little’ to do without. Even Gmail and the office suite are free, however if you want tech support you have to pay.

Case in point: in an attempt to broaden market share, RIM recently released a free version of the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), which has been downloaded by hundreds. When we asked Blackberry respresentatives how many of these downloads had actually been registered, the answer was ‘very few’. Why? Because most clients come to recognize that specific expertise is required to deploy BES - expertise that our clients may not possess.

Some versions of virus protection software are “free”, however paid subscriptions far outpace free versions in the business world. “Free” comes with limited or no support, management difficulties or reduced functionality – a kind of trial ‘bait and switch’. Free makes us suffer advertising or reminders or watermarks - all irritants that lead us to eventually pay if the product has value.

For us, the kicker is this statement: “Customers are willing to pay for nominally free products because they understand that only when money changes hands does the seller become reliably responsible to the buyer”. Well said. 

What do you think? feedback@digitalio.com

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/139/tech-edge-the-high-cost-of-free.html