Everyone is feeling the pinch these days, that’s a given. But who is doing something about it, especially, for smaller businesses?
Well, one interesting business model is that of Spiceworks.
The company developed a fairly comprehensive network management tool aimed at people with basic networking skills. It is free to download and use, but it comes with targeted advertising in it.
You can pay to have it removed, or you can engage with it and ensure that the application shows you advertising that is relevant, appropriate and geographically accessible.
Spiceworks currently has in the region of 500,000 users worldwide and, the company has told me, many users in Ireland. That, in the current climate, is a sound business model.
In better times, other companies did not have to such things to sell their products. The Spiceworks model may have been seen as a gimmick. However, having looked closely at the application, it is certainly not a gimmick itself, it is a capable, comprehensive tool that would serve any small business.
Today, now that things have got tougher, we may see other areas beyond network management being, shall we say…Spiceworked!
With the rise of software as a service (SaaS), there may be several areas that will soon be practical to serve in this model. One might see anything from CRM and e-mail services, to desktop access being made available free with embedded advertising. The trick that Spiceworks seem to have pulled off is making the advertising actually useful, ensuring that the users aren’t annoyed to the point of abandoning it.
The success of what Spiceworks has done has meant that the application has proved very attractive to the most cash strapped sector, small to medium businesses. If others can figure out the appropriate advertising policy to replicate this success, then small businesses may soon have a range of ‘free’ services that might go a long way towards increasing capabilities and efficiencies without having trouble the bank, let alone break one.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers