Company Offers Free Help Desk Software to Open Source Projects

by Lisa Hoover - Aug. 10, 2009Comments (9)

Kayoko

You know those little windows that pop up on some Web sites that allow you to connect instantly with a live customer service representative? Typically you find that type of service on Web sites built for big companies, but non-profit organizations can also benefit from the personal touch with patrons and potential donors. Unfortunately, the cost of help desk and live chat software can be prohibitive.

Live chat and CRM software vendor Kayako wants to help charitable foundations and open source software projects provide better customer service to users, so the company has announced it's offering free and unlimited licenses for all help desk software and add-ons to charities and teams developing open source software.

The software's retail licensing begins at $29.95 per month for unlimited users and can reach as high as $400 for hosted and supported options. Add on products for mobile devices, syncing, and instant alerts and prices can escalate quickly. All non-profit charitable organizations and open source software projects, however, are free to use the software and add-ons completely free of charge. Kayako will even throw in tech support and upgrades for a whole year. According to the agreement terms, organizations can keep the license forever.

Jamie Edwards, operations manager at Kayako, told ciol.com, "We have been helping organizations and teams cut their costs by making their customer service more efficient and enabling them to offer easy-to-use self-help resources to their own customers. We would hate to think that price is a barrier to entry for these organizations wanting and needing to cut down on their operating costs, which is why we are giving away our help desk software."


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9 Comments
 

Really, OStatic? You don't point out the difference between free-as-in-beer vs. free-as-in-speech -- getting locked into Kayako's proprietary system isn't really going to help non profits or open source organizations.


This is the same tactic that Salesforce has pulled in the past.


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Hi Boris,


I chose to post about this because Kayako is making an offer that could potentially save open source projects some money. Whether projects chose to voluntarily get involved with the offer or not is up to them.


Thanks for reading!


~ Lisa


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That's the point: it WON'T save them money -- it will cost them in the long run, as committing to proprietary software usually does.


This is the free-a-in-beer trap, which you should know better than to be promoting.


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Nothing is free, everything costs money.Especially help support.


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@Boris - do you have a better alternative which incorporates the same feature/functionality as Kayako? It would be more productive to post that rather than rant about the ills of proprietary systems. At the end of the day its up to the project/non-profit to decide on the best course. And what part of "free and unlimited licenses for all help desk software and add-ons" makes this a "trap"?


@Erik - you should read up on "No Follow" tags.


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@Boris The license is perpetual, there is access to the source codes, the offer comes with 12 months of technical support.


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Boris,


I completely understand what you're saying and you make a valid point. I'm simply saying that open source projects need to decide for themselves if this is something they want to participate in or not. I'm not "promoting" anything, I'm just letting people know this opportunity is available. It's not my place to decide for others what's a "trap" and what isn't.


~ Lisa


1 Votes

@Boris - Jamie Edwards here from Kayako. I completely understand your suspicions - after all, the history of some vendors and similar offers validates them.


We are not out to make a fast buck out of open source organizations or charities. We've done all we can to convince people of this - the licenses are perpetual, we relinquish all rights to 'take back' the free license (aside from those reserved in our regular EULA), we offer 12 months of technical support (regular customers only get 6 on purchase), there is no obligation to renew support after this time and finally we provide access to the majority (> 99%) of the application source code, for free.


I am sure you will agree that we've done our utmost to make sure that organisations and OSS projects are in a 'safe' position with regards to 'locking into' a propitiatory system. Having said that, we understand it still may not be enough for everybody. As Lisa has said, this is a decision which needs to be considered and taken individually.


A big thank you to OSTatic and Lisa for blogging about this. Our free offer with regards to charities has received a lot of press, and we have been concerned we have not been able to reach a great deal of the OSS community.


We /are/ committed to giving something back to the OSS community - not just in free licenses, but in code too. You'll find more information on our blog, under 'Open Source'.


- http://blog.kayako.com/2008/11/introducing-pyliveresponse-a-multiplatfor...

- http://blog.kayako.com/2008/11/periscope-up-what-johns-doing-at-kayako-t...

Thanks for your comments!


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I am looking for outsourced business aquisitions of technical and customer support of companies !!!!


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