Product Pricing Primer by Eric Sink
Camels and Rubber Duckies by Joel Spolsky
Software Pricing by Philip Greenspun
Straight Talk on Software Pricing - manifold.net (product specific)
Users, Vendors at Odds Over Software Pricing - PC World
Supply & Demand: Software Pricing - Eweek
Rethinking Software Pricing in a Service-Oriented World - zapthink

Jesse Grosjean of Hog Bay Software is the latest microISV to be profiled. Hog Bay Software specializes in apps for Apple’s OS X operating system. Jesse is a full time microISV who offers his insights on pricing, user support and productivity.

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Eric’s latest article ‘Finding a Product Idea for Your Micro-ISV‘ is now up at Microsoft’s Longhorn Developer Center. He says this regarding brainstorming for new ideas.

Just write down every idea and start thinking of another one. Once the flow starts, don’t stop it.

Because many of us are not yet full time microISV’s, our current jobs offer and excellent source of ideas. Just yesterday I spoke with someone who receives a monthly check from a company for a script he wrote to automate a very manual process. He has absolutely no training in software development but he was able to identify a need and fill it. The business owner did not care in the least about what IDE he used or how it even worked. All he needed to know was that the process worked consistently and repeatedly. In return for that, the business owner pays him a percentage of each item processed by the script. Not a bad deal.

Eric, thanks for the link and welcome to all the new readers.

Related Sites:
Eric Sink, founder of SourceGear

Paul Allen of Infobase Ventures (not Microsoft Paul Allen) has posted a list of requirements for entrepreneurs who are interested in being mentored by him. While the list is provided as a what to do if you want me to talk with you , there is no reason that this list can’t be used as a checklist for any microISV when setting up your operation for success.

Joseph Lieberman, Marketing Manager for VGSmart, has posted a critique of a press release over on the Indie Gamer discussion forums. He offers some great information for creating a press release that will catch the eye of an editor as well as your target customer.

David Richard Brooks of microISV Reality is looking for new and experienced microISV’s to “collaborate towards success”. David plans to launch in January 2005, so make sure to submit your information soon if you’re interested.

With the big retail holiday push in full effect, increased sales are something that shareware developers would like to see as well. Clark Venable wishes there was an easier way to give shareware as gifts.

In 1999 AOL acquired Winamp creator Nullsoft, the shareware company founded by Justin Frankel, for $100 million. Frankel left AOL earlier this year and is now working on his new project, the Jesusonic!

Nullsoft and Frankel were back in the news in November when AOL shut down what remained of Nullsoft.

Nick Bradbury has found a competitor who is using the data files from TopStyle and is passing them off as their own. Nick posts about how borrowing from others can be a benefit to all, but blatantly stealing is simply going too far. He has asked for your feedback on how to proceed.

Along these same lines, in a series of posts made yesterday in the news section of Stylegala (see Powerhouse Fraud & Fraud Web Designers), a web design company was brought to task for posting links to sites that were supposedly part of their portfolio but were in fact designs by other well known designers. The owner of the company has apparently fired the employee responsible and has apologized to the designers whose works were referenced. The effect of the public outpouring was not very favorable based on the site’s current home page.

Related Links:
microISV Profile: Nick Bradbury

Just in case you haven’t found it yet, Shareware Blogs has recently launched.

Robert Scoble, Microsoft Geek Blogger, has asked Diego Doval of CleverCactus to post a funding pitch to his blog after Diego posts about the company’s ability to attract VC or angel funding and how the company is in danger of running out of cash. Scoble offers to forward the pitch to people who may be interested investors.

Diego’s software company running out of cash via Scobelizer

Nick Bradbury shares his experience gained from creating three successful shareware applications as well as some insights that many can use while on your own path to creating a successful shareware application.

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Because many of you read the site via RSS I wanted to point out the new poll on the site, “When did you last purchase a shareware application?“. I think all of us would be interested to see the results among the shareware community so please cast a vote.

microISV Reality
matt.griffith

Microsoft employee Scott Gunnerson details the testing and bug tracking process going into ASP.Net 2.0 and Visual Web Developer. The numbers are pretty impressive. 1.4 testers per developer, 105,000 test cases and 505,000 test scenarios.

Testing ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Web Developer
Tracking Bugs