(2002-02-19) c

Semi-interesting article about ShareWare authors, specifically talking about the Zoot PIM. I beg, with all due respect, to differ. Zoot is not "just commercial software." There is a fundamental difference between Zoot and trial software from Symantec. And thank goodness. By its very nature, shareware can be more creative, efficient, and adaptable than mainstream programs. Corporate software is typically written for other corporations and must satisfy the conservative tastes of the business mass market. Programs written at large companies must also shoulder their fair share of high labor costs, marketing budgets, and overhead, or risk cancellation. The resulting software is normally solid, workmanlike, unsurprising, and safe, but has little room for innovation, no taste for risks. Take Lotus Agenda and Lotus Improv, two of the most brilliant programs I have ever used. Both were written by large teams at Lotus Development Corporation. Agenda was a free-form database with some similarities to Zoot, Improv a highly flexible spreadsheet application. They are, alas, no longer with us. Despite $40 million in gross sales, Agenda was discontinued for financial underperformance. Though widely applauded by software critics, Improv was cancelled for similar reasons and an alleged turf war with 1-2-3, the Lotus flagship spreadsheet.