Stimulus is in the air, and not just in the form of optimistic government handouts.
Atlassian got into the stimulus vibe last week, offering $5 licences for the Australian company’s popular online business collaboration products JIRA and Confluence. All proceeds were donated to Room to Read, a charity that builds libraries and schools in the developing world. Sadly, the five-day promotion has finished, but it was wildly successful. The goal of raising $25,000 was achieve in just 23 hours and, in total, 13,126 licences were sold over the five days, raising $100,370 for Room to Read.
Last week, Google announced its own “stimulus” offer to Australian SMEs. Businesses that have never tried AdWords can take advantage of Google’s $75 giveaway stimulus offer before 30 June 2009 at google.com.au/stimulus.
In both cases, people other than Atlassian and Google benefited directly (the developing world and Australian SMEs, respectively). And of course, Atlassian and Google pushed their products out to new audiences. Win-win.
If this stimulus approach is a little to nuanced for your taste, Australian electrical products company Kogan Technologies has released Kevin37, a 37 inch digital LCD television. The $900 price tag just happens to be the same amount as the cheque most taxpaying Australians are in the process of receiving as part of PM Kevin Rudd’s Federal stimulus package. The TV even comes with a free promotional Kevin37 T-Shirt in the style of the old Kevin07 campaign tees.
