Mistletoe (Wikimedia commons, public domain)
Joel has a good point remarking the senselessness of building a business around some add-ons for other products. It’s not a new finding, but at least he took the time to write it down.
It’s not necessarily a bad decision to offer such products, as long as you are aware of the fact that the platform vendor can kick you out at any time. There are several products for desktop sharing on the market. It is obvious that they lost their business as soon as the operating system vendor integrated such a feature directly into the platform. Most operating systems can unzip files nowadays. If you sold an unzip utility yesterday, don’t complain that you haven’t sold any license today.
A similar thing might happen as soon as some open source hacker takes the time to write code similar to yours. Instead of whining, better grab your chances. Just do it better. Listen to your customers and give them the tool they need. If you do it right, they will honor your efforts.
