Software companies are increasingly making an effort to reduce their carbon footprint by making their products available to consumers through download or through the SaaS (News - Alert) (Software as a Service) subscription model. 

 

But while these attempts are being made, companies are overlooking the amount of energy consumed when shipping CDs, boxes, and sales brochures, not to mention the use of airplanes and delivery trucks sending out demo versions of software.

 

Runaware, a Fort Lauderdale-based company, has a uniquely “green” alternative to this process. TestDrive lets software vendors demonstrate their products to numerous users over the Web in a virtual “test drive” environment. The solution allows prospects to work with the vendor’s fully-featured product, yet without ever loading the software onto their personal PC or workstation. 

 

Through the use of TestDrive, all functionality is made available on the prospect’s PC though ActiveX or Citrix Java browser plug-ins.  Users can interact with sample data, personalize the user interface and make other changes. Each time they leave the TestDrive session, however, all changes are removed and the environment is reset.

 

Functioning as a suite of services, TestDrive includes customer profiling, lead capture, tutorials, customer usage reporting and more.  Additionally, Runaware can develop online tutorials, self-guided tours, and marketing support videos to further improve resource efficiency the for software industry, a business now accounting for $400 billion in annual worldwide sales.

 

Leading software companies including Microsoft, Intuit (News - Alert) and Sage Software already use TestDrive to reduce their carbon footprint. TestDrive claims to be one of the most responsible ways for software vendors and companies to save thousands of dollars per prospect, while also significantly reducing the environmental impact of their sales and marketing cycles. 

 

Runaware was founded in 1999, and currently holds offices in North America and Europe. Runaware is the global provider of online software demonstration services, and aims to give software vendors and publishers a revolutionary way to provide a hassle-free online demonstration service that runs full versions of software safely and securely over the Internet, with no CDs, downloads or installations required.