“FREE SOFTWARE BUYER'S GUIDE"

 

This excellent and independently produced Buyer's Guide has a number of very good tips for software purchasers. In just a few pages the Buyer's Guide will cut through the confusion by helping you identify the software that fits your needs.

• Software Evaluation - Assess your needs. Whether it's for a single department or the entire church, the software your church buys will certainly affect more than the person who decides what to buy.
• Making the Selection - Knowing your needs helps you identify the features that might set one program apart from another.
• How to Buy - Software is available in a variety of forms - it can be purchased out of the box off a shelf at an office superstore, downloaded from a vendor Web site, or even accessed on a rental basis over the Internet from an Application Service Provider.
• Price - Pricing for software depends on the kind of program you are purchasing, how many licenses you need to buy, and who you're buying the software from.
• Support - For a small church or business, the greatest cost of computer software lies not in the initial price of software but in installation, training, maintenance, upgrades, troubleshooting and lost time due to system failures and lack of user training. A good support and upgrade strategy will help minimize these costs.