There are lots of Bible software products on the market and as we already mentioned we have asked four of the main Bible software companies to answer some questions about what they do and how they do it.
Why did we do this?
As general consumers we purchase products frequently without knowing much about the companies we are purchasing from. However, believers share a common faith, and as such we want to help foster some community from a technical perspective - we think that helping you understand a little about the organizations working to support believers through technology can only be good.
So we have three goals to this series of Q&A questions.
1) To open these companies up to you the consumer to help you to understand where these companies came from, what drives them and their target markets
2) To open your eyes to the variety of software products that are available to you
3) To open a discussion and facilitate feedback about some of the limitations of technology today.
How are the questions structured?
The questions were asked of each software company individually. None of the answers have been shared, so the comparison that will be done here will be an interesting read for all the companies involved as well as their customers.
We have four sets of questions. The four areas are:
1) Company - where did you come from, what milestones have been important for the companies, what philosophies exist around publishing books and what is the company purpose and mission?
2) Products - what products do you produce, what platforms do you support, who do you target your software at, how do you do user scenario planning/modeling, product planning, how do you price books?
3) Technology - what advantages do you see software having over regular books and paper, what new technology will make the biggest difference in the future, how do you think Bible software will change in ten years time?
4) Getting started - What sets your software apart for the new user, what is the easiest entry level package you sell, book interoperability, how do you handle upgrades for users?
These questions will be posted in four posts over the next two weeks, so watch out for them!