Codeweavers challenge backfires - free software today

A CodeWeavers challenge to President Bush has resulted in the company giving its software away for free. In July, CodeWeavers announced that it would be giving away its software for a day, if George W Bush managed to meet some economic goals in the Lame Duck Challenge. On October 14th, one of those goals, that the price of petrol would drop to $2.79, was met and so Codeweavers has had to offer its software free for a day, namely today, Tuesday 28th of October 2008. The web site is already down with people wanting to get their free copy of Codeweaver's CrossOver product; and although the site is still giving out serial numbers, for the serial number to be valid it needs to be registered on the Codeweaver's site by midnight (central standard time) on Wednesday.

Jeremy White, president and CEO of CodeWeavers described how he realised that CodeWeavers would have to give away their software; "That morning, I was filling my tank at Big Steve's Gas Palace in St. Paul, I had just finished my morning corn dog and 64-ounce Dr. Pepper when I looked at the pump and noticed gas was at $2.79. I screamed 'Woohoo,' then I yelled 'Oh, crap!' as I realized every American can now have my software for free. Kind of upsets my fourth quarter revenue projections…"

There are at least five goals to be met in the Lame Duck Challenge; Return the stock market to its 2008 high, reduce the average price of a gallon of milk to $3.50, create at least one net job in the US this calendar year, return the median home price to its January 1st 2008 level or bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. These goals are, luckily for CodeWeavers, unlikely to be met for the same reason that the first goal was met, the global financial crisis, which is pushing house prices and the stock market down and sending economies into recession.

(djwm)