Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

This story strikes me as funny simply because for a decade now I have tried to explain to employers and bosses that WinZip aint free.

Vector Capitol recently purchased WinZip and has stated they will "remind customers a little more firmly" that WinZip is a 30 day eval after which it costs money. In the past WinZip had the "yes or no" button to use the eval version - and switched the position of the buttons just to see if people were paying attention - but that was about it.

WinZip purchased by turnaround specialist

I have worked for several huge companies that did complete and crazy "software audits" and so on, to make sure everything was licensed and purportedly to disallow anything that was not. Even in these audits, even when it was mentioned "hey what about WinZip", they did not take the "price" of the ubiquitous software seriously.

Home users and corporations alike have used WinZip for a long time now, and about all of 12 people have ever actually bought it.

There are other alternatives of course, you do not have to buy it and you can still have a little graphical zip thingy on Windows, but just due to inertia most Windows machines have Winzip and 98% of users are trained to just click the "yes" continue eval button at startup.

Maybe that will all change going forward, Vector has had success with other companies (Corel) but it seems like a tougher climb to sell a zip utility. (People do have lots of other options, maybe one reason WinZip never pushed, there are other cheaper and or free utilities, and if it ever becomes a real issue I am sure more "free" alternatives will pop up.)