Vector Capital Acquires WinZip
Posted by Sachin Garg on 19th July 2005 | Permanent Link
Is it possible to make money off a product that millions have downloaded for free? The new owners of WinZip Computing hope so.
Vector Capital has acquired the maker of popular file compression software WinZip. Vector Capital said it closed the deal, for which terms weren’t disclosed, earlier this year.
WinZip is available to download for free, but charges $29 for use after the 21-day trial period. Historically, however, few WinZip users have paid for the product. Vector Capital said that it bought WinZip Computing in a bid to reinvigorate the file compression software that generates little revenue despite its popularity. (Privately held WinZip has never disclosed its revenues.)
Vector has inked a co-marketing and distribution agreement with Google, bundling the product with the Google toolbar. WinZip also recently released the WinZip Companion for Outlook, which compresses and encrypts email attachments like Excel files and PowerPoint presentations that are usually difficult to email because of their size.
Vector Capital, which specializes in buyouts and recapitalizations of technology companies that have great software products but lack the power to monetize them effectively, has had success with challenging turnarounds in the past. (In 2003, Vector Capital bought software company Corel, took it private, streamlined its product lines, and turned it into a profit-making venture.)
July 19th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Given that Zip compression is so poor and there are a million free zip programs out there, I’m not sure how you’d convince people to pay for it. And I say this as a person who has purchased WinRAR, Stuffit Deluxe and, most recently, WinRK.
July 24th, 2005 at 3:37 am
[...] le on makers of WinZip and the recent acquisition by Vector Capital. Apart from the things already discussed here at The Data Compression News Blog, here are some interesting points made there: It [...]
October 2nd, 2005 at 1:48 am
Any info on how much was the deal for… I saw some news on the deal of 50 Million USD. But I couldn’t find the exact details. Does any one have any updates/snippets on whether the deal is actually through and the final figures of the acquisition?