Happy new year everyone! “Lets hope the year of the Tiger treats us better than the year of the Cow did!” 
, to quote Bill from Webmaster World.
I hope this year the ASP will become even more popular (this is also the main 2010 goal of Jim Coutu, the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ASP) and will welcome more software authors.
A few changes have happened inside the ASP board: it has a new Chairman and 3 new members have joined the Board for a two year term. Jim Coutu from GatorData Inc is the new Chairman of the Board of Directors for this year. The three new members who have been elected for the board, that I wish to welcome wholeheartedly, are:
A big thank you on behalf of everyone at ASP goes to the 3 members whose term ended in the Board of Directors, for all the enthusiastic work done in ASP: Henk Devos, Greg Weir and Dave Gjessing.
Get involved!
ASP depends on the commitment of professionals from the software industry. For the ASP to effectively represent you and our software industry we invite your participation. We are actively seeking passionate and capable professionals to join the ASP and serve as officers or committee chairs. Get involved at the ground level and offer your skills to help.
State of the Micro-ISV-osphere
For 2010, I think it would be a good idea to start with an assessment of your current software business situation, in comparison to the shareware industry statistics.
Our colleague Rob Ellison parsed through all the PAD files available in the ASP PAD directory (76,066 products!) and generated answers to some questions regarding the Micro-ISV-osphere state – do check it out, you might find something of interest!
So, what would you like to see ASP doing for you in 2010? Please comment below.
Adriana Iordan Announcements ASP, association, association of shareware professionals, shareware, software
The ASP funded the development of a software certification service called Safer Downloads (SD) through the trial stage.
It now wants to divest itself of this property and is soliciting bids to transfer ownership.
Up for sale, as a package, are the:
- saferdownloads.com (.net & .org) and safeshareware.com domain names (4 total)
- USPTO trademark registration of the seals
- ownership of the proprietary software and content used to power the site
- activity and test records, as they exist on site
All funds offered by initial prospective customers (less than 10) have been returned. Most bank balances have been recovered by the ASP. An existing CD (time deposit) will be recovered soon and so there are no financial assets transferring to buyer under this sale.
NOT for sale are the domain hosting, and DNS, Corporation shell (negotiable), records, and PayPal account. Buyer will be expected to supply own legal, financial, and internet environment. The buyer will also be expected to operate the site independently of the ASP and not imply any ongoing ASP approval, involvement, or participation.
The ASP explicitly reserves the right to not accept any bid for any reason or apply arbitrary ranking offsets. Extent of cash payments to ASP and special pricing for ASP members are two anticipated ranking factors. ASP expectation is that bidding start at $1,000.
Contact VP@asp-shareware.org with SD4SALE anywhere in each email. Such email correspondence may be quoted in whole or in part among ASP officers, directors, and volunteers having access to ASP boardroom. We ask that you register your intent prior to Midnight Dec. 13, 2009.
Dennis Reinhardt is Vice President of the ASP and chair of the PAD Specification Committee.
Dennis Reinhardt Announcements ASP, safer downloads, software
Download PADGen 3.1.0.41
ASP announced recently that a new version of PADGen ( 3.1.0.41) is available – utility that helps software developers create portable application description (PAD) files. This is the first major update to the PADGen™ PAD™ generation tool in over a year.
Does your software support Windows 7? If so, you need to update to the new PADGen. In addition to Windows 7, the new PADGen supports a streamlined and standardized list of Windows operating systems.
Are you switching to Mac? The new PADGen supports a standard OSX type rather than specific version numbers. This future-proofs your submissions. iPhone is new as well.
This support is based on the PAD 3.10, available to download sites for a few months. While there will be some inevitable transitioning between old and new specs, the future appears to belong to Windows 7 and iPhones so we urge all authors to convert to the platform which supports them: download PADGen 3.1.0.41.
Special thanks to Oliver Grahl for the development of this update.
Dennis Reinhardt is Vice President of the ASP and chair of the PAD Specification Committee.
Dennis Reinhardt Announcements, News
Here we are at another milestone – the ASP Blog launch day . I’m just as excited as you are when thinking of the things we will be able to do via this powerful tool. As a first post, let me tell you more about…
… the idea behind it:
This new resource is intended to help you as a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals share your experience and learn from others on various topics of your interest.
… main benefits you can get from the blog:
I’m sure many of you are advocates of blogs in general. What’s in it for you on this one? First of all, you will know how others handled various aspects of their business, what was successful and what went wrong. You can learn from their know-how and calibrate your strategy in the right direction, avoiding pitfalls.
Secondly, you can benefit from important advertising / promotion opportunities via the ASP Blog. Don’t get me wrong, we won’t encourage or accept blatant advertising. We encourage real knowledge, tips, ideas. The more you contribute, the more your name will be associated with Software Industry Professionals.
… contributing to the blog:
Any ASP member can post on the blog. You just have to send your request to blog@asp-shareware.org and you will get further details via email. Read more…
Adriana Iordan Announcements association, microisv, shareware, software
