Realty Times February 1, 2000

Eudora Pro - For Free?
by Stephen Canale

For several years I've been a user and strong advocate of Eudora Pro email software.

Despite all of its advantages, some folks just don't see the value of spending $40 for a quality program, when something else is available for free. Soon, price will be no consideration!

Joining the ever-growing wave of free Internet products, Qualcomm will begin providing a sponsor-supported version of the full-featured Eudora Pro email program at no charge.

What they're actually doing is rather ingenious; and that is developing a single program that can run in three different operating modes.

Starting with version 4.3 anyone can download Eudora from the web and then choose to run the program in:

  • "Light Mode" - As a "light" product, it will have limited capabilities, but will be entirely free. The user will actually be "paying" for the program via a single advertisement banner or logo that will be part of the software.

  • "Sponsor Mode" - This will be a full featured program, with nothing held back; yet still free! In this case you'll simply have to endure rotating advertisements in lieu of paying cash.

  • "Paid Mode" - As you can probably guess, this mode is full featured, without any advertisements displayed whatsoever.

    The outstanding value behind this delivery concept is twofold:

    1. There's only one piece of software to download, (though if you like, the "paid version" will still be available in a box through traditional software retailers) and this will make upgrading in the future a breeze.
    2. You get to control the choices at your leisure. Thus, most people will probably choose to run the program in "Sponsor Mode" for a while. Then, if, and only if, they find the advertisements too annoying, they can simply choose to pay a fee to make the marketing pitches go away. Fortunately, in this case there will be no new software to acquire, install or configure.

    If you've ever wanted to try a professional level email client, but have been putting it off, you'll soon have a great opportunity!

    While the full-blown rollout will not happen for another month or two, there is a "beta" version now available at Eudora.com .

    NOTE: If you don't want to be a "test subject," then skip the beta download. Instead, check the site occasionally until the official release is available.


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