Now returning to challenge of little guy, we little guys do not have deep pockets to sell you on value of our products. So, with Shareware and Trialware, we let you try our software for free for an amount of time, and then we hope and pray that consumer will find value in product and opt to pay for our products.

Other companies have seen skeletons of companies who have tried Shareware and Trialware and have failed. These other companies usually prefer to post their software on market as Adware. The theory here is that consumer is often so fickle that developer would prefer to take their chances with advertisers paying bills, rather than to rely on consumers to pay bills.

Many people jump up and down, scream and holler about software that employs advertising to pay bills. Yet, same person doing hollering, if placed in a situation where he was told that he would need to go to work everyday without any expectation for a paycheck, would explode in fury!

Would it be better that these dedicated software developers did not produce any software at all? Should software development be left only to Microsoft?

I don't know about your household, but in my household, if I don't bring in money, then I would be minus a wife and family! So, challenge I am left with --- if I want to work in software development, I must find a way to get hired on at Microsoft, find millions in seed capital to create value for retail market or to build advertising into my software. Me, I have tried shareware route... and then cut my losses and moved on. It was a good product, really it was...

I will tell you what. If I ever write any more software for Windows operating system, I will likely create an Adware product. From developers perspective, it is safe bet. >From consumers perspective, it really should be considered a small price to pay to keep my wife happy and me working to improve product.

I am talking about this issue tonight because one of my favorite software packages has gone to Adware model with its latest upgrade. Upon release of new ePrompter software, people were upset to see advertising in this wonderful email notification software.

Let me assure you that value of this software far surpasses small price of looking at a few ads when I check my email. Should I prefer developer to continue to work for free, or should I be willing to help him pay his bills while he continues to improve on software? I will support his right to earn money for his time and effort.

ePrompter continues to provide more and more value in my daily life online. Try ePrompter for yourself by downloading your copy at: http://www.eprompter.com

I am certain that once you have taken ePrompter for a spin around block, you will also appreciate value of Adware business model, and more importantly value of ePrompter software.

The mainstream is missing here. That is clearly part of odd atmosphere at web conferences as vendors hawk their wares from fancy show booths . . . and to whom? To enterprise, stupid!

Individual sales for those companies offering small business solutions means income of less than $100 monthly, or licensing fees of between $500 and $2000 for those vendors and not multimillion dollar deals that you read about in Wall Street Journal. This means that those vendors that do offer small business solutions most often don't attend trade shows because they can't reach their audience there. Unless they can also sell their tools to enterprise level Dilbert-like drones, there is little reason to hawk their wares at trade shows.

Are there any folks out there (other than Mac users) who just have a middle level interest, run a small business online and don't sound like they are spelling everything when discussing business applications? CRM, ROI, ERP, J2EE, XML and even SOAP are on tongues of corporate suits. Are rest of us lost and wandering aimlessly through InternetWorld, sponsored by AOL? Even MacWorld conference seems to be overflowing in stuff only giant corporate Goliaths can possibly afford for their business.

I hope that adoption of UNIX platform for OS X makes Apple more successful, but I'd sure hate to see ENTERPRISE software and business users make Apple move to that lucrative market and forget what made them a success in first place, lack of jargon, intuitive commands and pleasing, even fun to use computers. Maybe Apple could develop a GUI for corporate use that reminds Dilbert-like drones that they are WORKING after all! Don't enjoy your time on clock, by golly! The screen is gray and lifeless and commands are full of jargon.

I'd like to propose to Steve Jobs that he attempt another launch of NEXT, which is essentially his basis for OS X. That way, if Big Business adopts NEXT with enthusiasm, we won't lose entertaining sound effects, understandable language and attractive graphics that make Apple delicious.