Unlike most of the prominent IM products available today, MaxxChat is NOT the result of a major corporate powerhouse with a multimillion-dollar annual budget.
Maxx doesn't HAVE a 65-man programming staff. It has ONE (part-time) programmer. Nor has it the advantage of ten YEARS of product evolution. It's had eight (8) MONTHS.
It doesn't have an annual budget of millions of dollars, nor does it run those obnoxious banner ads. It operates on an annual budget of ZERO. Up to this point, it's been funded entirely out of my own pocket.
Despite the absence of a budget or a team of programmers, Maxx has made a VERY real difference in the IM community. It has prompted changes at AOL, MicroSoft, and Yahoo among others.
You can believe AIM, ICQ, MSM, and the others have noticed Maxx. In fact, I would dearly LOVE to be a fly on the wall at some of their team meetings. (smile) "Let me get this straight... I have 65 of you bozos who claim to be the brightest and best this industry has to offer? We pay you guys a cumulative annual income of $25 million dollars a year? And yet... this ONE LITTLE GUY... in his SPARE time...from ARKANSAS of all places... with a budget of ZERO... with NO income from his product WHATsoever... is whipping our butts??"
In the simplest of terms, I write Maxx in my spare time because I ENJOY it.
I write it to prove that the LITTLE GUY - the average guy on the street - STILL has a chance on the internet to stand toe-to-toe and compete with the big boys.
I write it to keep the industry leaders on their toes. I write it because I've noticed over the past five years that the major players in the IM and IRC worlds have become complacent - that they have made surprisingly few REAL enhancements. And healthy competition is just what they needed to prompt them to continue improving their products.
I write it because Maxx makes a difference far beyond the scope of Maxx itself.
Over the past seven months alone, Maxx has built a user community of over 2.8 million people. This doesn't happen by chance, but as the direct result of all my loyal friends who use my product referring it to THEIR friends.
Up to this point, MaxxChat has HAD no advertising budget - despite the fact that I realise it needs one. You've seen no banner ads, no blatant commercialism, nothing of this nature. In fact, up to now Maxx has been FreeWare.
Unfortunately, Maxx' financial model is going to have to change. The number of daily downloads have now grown to a point where they are devouring more bandwidth than I can reasonably continue to afford out of my own pocket.
I have no stockholders, no partners. Just me. And I'm NOT a doctor or lawyer, dentist or accountant. I'm an average guy, just like you - with a VERY average income.
In the simplest of terms, grim economic realities prevail. If I want to be able to continue offering Maxx, I have to be able to pay for the download bandwidth it uses.
For this reason, Maxx now makes the move from FreeWare... to "Freeware-but-accepting-contributions". This copy of Maxx is fully functional and is not crippled in any way. But contributions are STILL appreciated. ;o)
To the best of my knowledge, MaxxChat is the ONLY broad-spectrum IM platform on the market still written and funded by an individual. It stands proudly as the ONLY remaining case in which an IM platform is available which is NOT the result of a megabuck corporate concern.
If you like Maxx, please help me to fund its continuing development and growth. Your contribution to MaxxChat (suggested $15.00 - or whatEVER you can help with) will help to pay the bandwidth on Maxx' servers and keep them online. In so doing, you help to keep the AOL's, the MicroSoft's, the Yahoo!'s of the IM community on their toes, improving THEIR products as well. It's the very foundation upon which our system of private enterprise was built. Value for product, keeping competitors competitive.
