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Award-winning RSS readers from NewsGator are now free. The affected products include the recently updated NetNewsWire 3.1 (for Mac), FeedDemon 2.6 (for Windows), NewsGator Go! (for Windows Mobile 2.0), and the public beta of NewsGator Inbox 3.0 (Microsoft Outlook). There are a few additional products not listed which became free, while a limited amount of others (site design software) did not. Setting apart other feed reader tools from the NewsGator product line is the ability to synchronize through the online platofrm and provide the same view of the user’s RSS content no matter when or where they read it. 

Two main reasons for the switch are to create a larger user base, so that when they enter the enterprise to sell their NewsGator Enterprise Server and Social Sites, there are already a large amount of people using their desktop RSS and other related applications already. Concerned about what information NewsGator is collecting – visit the FAQ page. The second reason is to collect user information – primarily the activity that users show on their products. Many, if not all programs and websites collect usage information, so this suite is no different – user feedback is often limited as companies need more wide scale information in order to improve their products. In the upcoming months, the online and client applications will be improved as more people take the opportunity to try the free products.

“It’s all about ubiquity,” said Greg Reinacker, NewsGator CTO and founder. “We have more than 100 Fortune 2000 companies using NewsGator Enterprise Server and our client products. In selling to these enterprises, we discovered that thousands of knowledge workers were already using one or more of our client products and we learned that we could drive the relevance of everyone’s experience by using the community’s anonymous content consumption patterns throughout the system. 

Users who purchased the products or renewed a subscription on or after December 9, 2007 will automatically receive a credit on their credit card they used to make the purchase. Allow up to 30 days for processing the credits. If you purchased it six months ago, with a one-year subscription, you will receive all products and updates for free, with the support contract still honored. Customer support will no longer be provided via email, however for all free users.

Now that the products are free, download them and enjoy a new RSS reading experience!

[via Mashable]