November 4, 2005
Freeware as next step for your in-house tools
In the past, we were very reluctant to make generally available some internal tools that we used internally, but a couple years ago we decided to give away as freeware a couple of tools that were very important in our process: Xbench and Comparator.
Since ApSIC is a localization provider for Spanish, our greatest concern was that our direct competitors would benefit from them for free, but it turned to be the other way around: our competitors are more reluctant to use our tools than anyone else!
We discovered that, in fact, releasing freeware had many upsides for our own performance as a language provider. Those who develop your internal tools know that normally internal tools are smart, but consistently quick and dirty in the execution. They are very vaguely documented - if at all - and the interface often needs to be demoed to new users so they get started with it.
By releasing freeware, we have been able to make great improvements in performance, documentation, and ease of use for the tools that were very important in our process. This effort translated into either many saved hours and/or more quality for the outcome of our employees and vendors.
If we had not released them as freeware, we probably would still use them, but they would not be as fast, clear and ready for our own users.
Another great benefit was that since both Xbench and Comparator are tools for quality-oriented people (in the areas of extreme consistency and traceability respectively), the e-networking achieved supporting them has been also very positive, as also valuable were the bugs or suggestions reported by the community of users.
Currently, we continue to enhance these tools and plan to continue releasing updates to them with additional functionality in the future.
If you also develop in-house tools, I encourage you to consider the freeware channel as a way to raise the bar of your own tools. The instant benefits are great improvements in your own process, more visibility both from your clients and resources, and who knows, maybe the tool can eventually become or be part of a commercial offering, or ‘grow up’ as an open source tool if it happens to make business sense.
posted by Josep Condal
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