Sun Country's Weblog

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/23/rising_cost_of_scaling/

A lot of software gets started by using the crack cocaine method. Give it to them for free to get them hooked and then start charging. This is how Microsoft Mail got started. I remember asking how many more thousands we were going to spend on our free version of Mail. The Director shot back what do you mean by that statement? So I asked him to total up all the machines that we were using, the cost to place an Operating System on that machine, and then add up all of the purchase requisitions to all of the parts needed to actually make the free version of Mail actually, deliver mail. $28,000 and climbing was the answer a while later. A least the Mail software was, free.