Tech Report: Types of Software

In this dire economic time people look to save money. This is particularly true of software. But there are some things you need to be aware.

There are three categories of software generally sold. They are “Academic/educational version”, “Commercial/Retail”, and OEM.

Academic software, which is sometimes called educational software too, is a version that has a restricted purchase to students and teachers. It is sometimes not full featured and sometimes limits any upgrades to another Academic version. The most important limitation is that it can not legally be used for any commercial venture, including your personal website if you charge anything or receive any revenue.

The advantage is reduced price.

Commercial or retail software is what you usually expect. If you go to a store like BestBuy you will most likely be purchasing a retail version. This is full featured with only the normal restrictions of any software.

The disadvantage is you pay the full advertised price.

OEM stands for “Original Equipment Manufacturer”. It is software whose use is tied to a particular piece of hardware. An example a PC with the operating system already loaded. The operating system is likely an OEM version. This means it can only be used with that specific hardware. The software when installed captures the Motherboard identification or other configuration information. If there is a change in your system and you need to reload the software it will likely fail.

The advantage is that manufacturers can get software at a greatly reduced price and use the preloaded software as a selling feature for their product. But the term OEM is not limited to just software. You will find hard drives, optical drives and other equipment listed as OEM. In these cases you generally get no tech support, manuals, or normal wrapping material.

The disadvantage is flexibility in use for the consumer in the case of software. With the other items the consumer must be very savvy with what they buy and how to use it.