Things to Consider while Looking for Software Lifetime Deals

If you need a lot of software tools for your business, it’s beneficial and profitable to look for software lifetime deals. But what are these deals and what to look for to obtain them? Let’s see.

What are Software Lifetime Deals?

If you are wondering what software lifetime deals are, here’s an explanation. When a developer develops a software tool and you discover it when it’s still in its launching phase or very early before others come to know about it, the developer or vendor can offer it to you for the lifetime for only a one-time fee with all the upgrades and other developments free to you.

What to Look for?

Naturally, you should look for criteria and weightings for such lifetime deals for the entire life of the software instead of the few initial months. Vendors may need you to pay a very low starting purchase price. Later the prices will increase and there will be upgrades over the lifetime of the software. All these whole life costs should be understood as well as factored, or else benefits may be nullified by unforeseen costs.

You should take into account the costs of maintenance as well as future launches of the application along with the initial cost. You’ll have to take a decision about whether to add costs of future versions in your budget of initial purchase. If you should, future versions that you can expect to arrive in a reasonable timescale of 3 to 5 years, must be factored in.

Pure cost is the only best criterion while comparing apples to apples, as in selecting diverse sources of a standard product. Often there should be options about business benefit and functionality, along with pure cost.

In any type of business, whether public or private sector, the main driver should be value for money and advantage over the whole life of the software, instead of lowest cost. Cheapest is hardly the best. Even with standard products, factors like maintenance, support, guarantees and availability of consultancy need to be considered as choosing criteria.

Cost of Ownership

Purchase cost is the cost paid to obtain the software originally. This will be pretty different from the total lifetime cost of owning the software over a period of many years. There will be additional costs that will be born over the software’s lifetime like license charges, future new launch costs, operational costs, lost productivity during downtime etc.

Consider all these factors and get the best software lifetime deals that will help you run your business smoothly.