Hulu did it for video, and Spotify did it for music. Now Roozz is hoping to do the same thing for software: bring it to the cloud, in a hosted, pay-as-you-need-it format. Roozz End User (free) is slickly designed and mostly easy to use, but, for now, at least, it's a bit hampered by a limited title selection and a few technical glitches.
To use Roozz, you simply point your browser to Roozz.com. The company says it works with all available browsers; I tested it on IE, Firefox, and Chrome. You'll need to go to Roozz End User tab (as opposed to Roozz Developers, which is for software vendors who want to rent out their wares). From there, you install a small plugin, and you'll be able to run any of the available applications right in your browser. You can scan Roozz's list of available applications at the site, where they're neatly listed by category. Hovering your mouse over the titles shows you a brief description of the application, and the rental fee if there is one.
Many of the titles on Roozz are available for free, but some are available for rental only. The prices, which are set in per-day, per-week, or even per-year fees, seem very affordable. Some titles cost 99 cents for a week, while others are less than $4 per day. The most expensive title I saw in a quick scan was "Senior Profil," a game demo that cost $25 for a three-month rental. Prices are determined by the software publishers, but Roozz says it has offered input on pricing, as this rental model is somewhat new.
Roozz's selection of titles is a bit limited: As of this writing, the company claims approximately 160 title. for rent. The company is planning to expand its catalog, saying it expects its library to reach 300 titles in 2013 and "upwards of 1000" in 2014. The current library includes a whole host of titles I'd never seen or heard of, but that doesn't mean it doesn't include some worthy applications, including titles like Audacity, Irfanview, and Xmind.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Comment