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The last 12 months will go down as one of the most disruptive and tumultuous periods in channel and technology market history. Not all the trends of 2009 are bad; in fact, some are quite positive. Channel Insider reflects on the top 20 trends of 2009 and their impact on the technology and channel marketplaces.

Top 20 Tech and Channel Trends of 2009 - 14. The “Free Way” to Expanding Market Share


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14. The “Free Way” to Expanding Market Share
Free giveaways and trial product offers have been around for a long time, but 2009 saw a surge in free bundling and the zeroing out of prices for entry-level products. The level of free product hitting the market in the last year was an effort by vendors to take advantage of economic conditions and grab market share from weaker rivals. Sophos, for instance, started giving away its antivirus applications as a bundle with new HP Integrity servers, and included free versions of its DLP technology with its antivirus packages. Microsoft entered the consumer security market with its free Microsoft Security Essentials community-based package. And N-Able, a leading remote monitoring and management tools software vendor, started giving away basic versions of its product to make it easier for solution providers to make the transition to MSPs. Free is always a hard price to beat, and became an exceedingly attractive selling point during the recession.

>> Sophos Giving Away AV Free with All HP Integrity Purchases

>> Morro Could Mark the Sunset of Antivirus

>> N-Able Offers Free License, Security Module to Spur Sales



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Slideshow Index:
  1. Top 20 Tech and Channel Trends of 2009
  2. 20. Recession, Recession, Recession
  3. 19. Coalescing Channel Communities
  4. 18. Price Integrity Slips; Margins Under Pressure
  5. 17. Marketing and Lead Gen Rediscovered
  6. 16. Security Gets Hot, Again
  7. 15. Consolidation of Professional Services
  8. 14. The “Free Way” to Expanding Market Share
  9. 13. Storage in Demand
  10. 12. Skills Shortage Amid High Unemployment
  11. 11. Let’s Get Vertical
  12. 10. Death of Printers
  13. 9. Unified Communications Gets Real
  14. 8. The Battle for the Setting Sun
  15. 7. Hewlett-Packard Buys 3Com
  16. 6. Cisco’s Unified Computing Strategy
  17. 5. Microsoft vs. Google: Open Warfare
  18. 4. Apple in the Enterprise
  19. 3. Rise of the Netbook
  20. 2. Windows 7
  21. 1. Cloud Computing (’Nuff Said)
  22. What’s Your Top Story of 2009?