WinZip purchased by turnaround specialist

[news=http://img312.imageshack.us/img312/5871/winzip2mc.gif]Is it possible to make money off a product that millions have downloaded for free? The new owners of WinZip Computing hope so.

WinZip, which specializes in software that compresses large files for storage or mailing, has been bought by turnaround investor Vector Capital.

For years, WinZip's eponymous utility has been one of the most popular shareware programs on the Web. More than 140 million people have downloaded the program, and it's downloaded for free about 500,000 times a week, said Chris Nicholson, a partner at Vector.

Technically, WinZip charges $29 for the program after a 30-day free trial. Unfortunately, the honor system doesn't work as well as it used to. Few customers end up paying for the program.

The company also has never charged for upgrades or new versions, a common practice in the software world. And it has not added extra features for customers that paid the $29 licensing fee.

"There was little emphasis on monetizing what they had," Nicholson said.

Vector will try to change that by reminding users a little more firmly that the software costs money, as well as likely coming out with features that only paying customers can download. Vector also signed a marketing and distribution agreement with Google.

But Nicholson added, "We don't want to be heavy-handed about it."

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/image...ews_source.gif Source: http://news.zdnet.com/WinZip+purchas...40_22-5790830.[/news]

Yeah it's just too bad WinZip sucks in comparison to WinRAR, IZArc & 7Zip.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zapjb

Yeah it's just too bad WinZip sucks in comparison to WinRAR, IZArc & 7Zip.

---

Was about to say.

Looks like RarLab will be enjoying the extra numbers because of this.

Surely M$ killed WinZip dead when they brought out XP, which can automatically read and create zip archives? :unsure:

inevitable really, it was going nowhere imo.

I hope they add the ability to search the interweb via winzip and big adverts for me to click on.
No wait I couldn't care less.