Project Management Shareware

Project management shareware includes all software products that provide their prospective users with trial (test) version to examine its functionality. These tools are usually distributed and popularized through special shareware archives (web-portals) where a big number of products are represented, so users can select what seems to fit their needs. Such free trial versions are very helpful to users as they allow understanding the software before employing (buying) it, and therefore shareware project management software helps to resolve the following issues:

• Minimizing cases of paying money back (because users can take some time to “play” with a free trial version before purchasing the commercial one);
• Avoiding or minimizing problem of customer dissatisfaction (as far as developers of shareware application fairly declare what they sell before the customers buy it);
• Covering the wider audience of downloaders – a system of independent web-portals (shareware web-sites) can distribute the software faster and wider than software’s original website can;

Types

Usually, a trial version of some program works in the same manner (with the same functionality) as the normal (commercial) one does (so such a version can be called “fully-functional” one), but once its trial period expires the program gets blocked with a message proposing to buy this software. Another sort of distribution is offering users freeware which is not really fully-functional, but a pared-down version (edition) that serves as a free “junior” product providing a reduced toolset of features, while there is the “senior” (more advanced) program that is sold for money. This way of distributing the free packages can be considered as not a completely fair one, but like an attempt to attract more downloaders with a help of exposing a label “freeware”. Besides this free kind, other kinds of programs can belong to open-sourced or cross-platform solutions. For example, the most part of project management shareware Mac-based programs are also delivered for Linux or Windows, and the price depends on the kind of OS (for example MAC-version can be the most expensive one). 

Specific example

Good example of shareware is VIP Task Manager. This is popular product for small & medium business, which offers a lot of benefits to its prospective users – from usual free trial version (30 days) to the free live-chat/email support service and recommendations during this trial period. This is the project management shareware Windows-operated solution that works in a real-time (client-server) manner to interconnect the project team in terms of collaboration for better productivity and better results in project management. Generally, benefits of this shareware project management system include the following things:

• Fully-functional trial version that initially works for 30 days, but can be extended for more (up to 60 days) if you are not sure if you fully tested it out;
• Free textual Tutorials (on-line and PDF to download), Video Guides (on-line and downloadable AVI format), and also tons of different articles to support you in terms of installing, using and administering this software;
• Forum where representatives of the community of users can post their suggestions, ask for help of peers or developers, and get informed about latest news;
• This program works as a better alternative/analogue to MS Outlook;