Rubenerd

Sent an email yesterday to GRC's sales department asking if they had a licence for student use:

Hello there!

I’m a computer science student in Australia interested in buying a licence for SpinRite for preventitive maintainence on several drives I use for my 100GB+ assignments. I have backups, but I work these drives pretty hard and am worried about looking after them properly.

Unfortunately AU$115.00 for a full licence for me is prohibitively expensive, so I was wondering if you offer student pricing? I understand such a licence would limit me to use only on my own machine I’m actively using for studiying, and I would be obligated to purchase a regular full licence when I finish my degree and am no longer a student.

Cheers, Ruben

Just got a reply last night Adelaide time, or yesterday morning California time:

Hi Ruben,

We’re sorry but we do not offer any type of educational discounts on SpinRite.

Thanks for your interest.

Sincerely,

Sue
GRC
Sales Dept.

After my initial dissapointment ebbed I was left with a sense of confusion. I would think if I were the creator of a product like SpinRite that's mostly sold through word of mouth sales, I would especially want computer science students actively using it and showing it to friends and classmates in a university environment.

Fresh computer science graduates would be a huge market for specialised software like this. Imagine if they reduced the price by 20% for students, but as a result a dozen people saw me use it and subsequently got their own student licences. I've seen this activity happen numerous times, friends of mine have combined bought hundreds of dollars worth of Mac software after seeing me demo it, and vica versa. Given we're in the formtive stages of our careers, software we start using and liking now could very well become indispesable parts of the toolkits we carry with us for many long years.

GRC absolutely has the right to deny me this request, on no part of their site do they make any suggestion of student pricing. I guess I'm just frustrated that I don't understand their business logic. To be fair, I am doing computer science and economics not business, so perhaps I'm not supposed to.

If you ever read this Steve, I'm a huge fan, but I encourage you to think about this.