As you can imagine I get asked by all types of companies and individuals to look at software. In fact, I probably get more requests to look at software than a lot of people even get email. And there's one thing that's becoming abundantly clear to me. People don't know the difference between personal and commercial software. I used to think that there are so many poor apps out in the wild just because nobody know As you can imagine I get asked by all types of companies and individuals to look at software. In fact, I probably get more requests to look at software than a lot of people even get email. And there’s one thing that’s becoming abundantly clear to me. People don’t know the difference between personal and commercial software. I used to think that there are so many poor apps out in the wild just because nobody knows how to code, but I’m starting to rethink that. Sure, there’s a lot of that going on, but from what I’ve seen lately, there are a lot of developers out there trying to sell these apps they’ve written for themselves and assuming that they’ll work the same for everyone out there, or that everyone has the same requirements. I’m telling you though, there’s a huge difference between personal and commercial software. I’ve got a coupld dozen apps I’ve written over the years to help me do my job at one company or another, and none of them are really ready for commercial use. And I would never dream of putting them out on the market because they’re just too specialized. And most of the time, they’re just simple little things I’ve written to save me some mouse clicks. I’ve written everything from indexing utilities, to things to help me manage DTS/SSIS packages. And most of it isn’t hard enough to be considered commercial software either. And that’s another peeve of mine. These guys who want $10K for something I could write in a couple days, and probably better. Or something that just puts a slightly different face on something that the native tools already do. So seriously… for those of you out there who are considering selling an app that you’ve written, ask yourself these questions: 1. Is it something the rest of us can use? 2. Is it complicated enough that the bulk of the IT world can’t easily do themselves? 3. Does it solve a wide-spread problem, or are you contriving a problem to sell software? 4. What will you have to do to make it a real commercial package?I guess what I’m really trying to say is just think about it before you push another useless app out into the marketplace. I never want to keep anybody from taking their shot. I mean, if you’ve got an app to sell and a dream to make it big, then by all means, make it so. I would seriously advise you though to ask a few people first and get their honest opinions about it before you go bothering the rest of us. And by all means, price it appropriatly. I’m getting so tired of everything having to cost several thousand dollars per server for the simplest things. Databases