EMS Professional Shareware offers a number of unique services for technical BBSes.
Cleanup Service
Already have a large collection of specialized technical shareware? Send us a dump of your collection, organized by EMS's library type, and we'll process it, adding anything we are missing to our next editions. This service is free, but is limited to substantial collections parallel to EMS's. You can free disk space and get a clean superset of your collection without the time consuming process of weeding out duplicates, commercial software, old versions, corrupt files, etc. QIC-80, 4mm DAT, 1.44MB diskettes, and any SCSI device are supported.
If you have a strong interest in collecting files in a particular area, EMS will pay you to help build and maintain our libraries. Pay can be as much as $6 per file. EMS can also help you produce and market your own CD-ROMs with technical or other material, on CDR or with bulk replication, often at no cost. All projects are strictly confidential.
$$$ Sales Referral/Commission Plan
EMS lets sysops place the ZIP files from the libraries on-line for downloads. It also allows you to place our databases and/or directory program on-line (for searching only, downloads of the database itself are not permitted). We also leave a small ADVERT.EMS file in each ZIP file, and ask you to include a notice in a bulletin or at the top of the file listing describing how to order a complete set of the ZIP files from EMS.
For each order we receive which references your BBS, we'll send or credit you 25% of the net order (not including sales tax or shipping). For example, one of your users decides they really don't want to download all 400MB of files in the NetWare library, and orders the CD-ROM from EMS, mentioning they heard about us on your BBS. Based on a $59.50 order, we would locate your BBS name in our customer database and send you a check for $14.88, or credit your account for your next order. Of course, you must get your user to mention your BBS, and you need to give us the name of your BBS, so that we will be able to send you the check or credit your account for upgrades.
BBS File Listing Program
EMS has written a program that will convert our database file listings (which are .DBF format) to whatever format you need for your BBS. The current version produces the 18 most popular BBS formats, but we will also make a custom version for your BBS free of charge. Because EMS databases contain so much more information than typical BBS listings, there are many opportunities for customization. You just need to provide us with a precise specification for the file listing you want (a sample is often sufficient). Because there is so much more information in our database than any BBS file listing, you have lots of room for customization. Customized file listings organized by producer, file listings organized by product name (not just ZIP name), listings organized by detailed subcategory of product (useful when there are over 3300 Clipper specific files, for example), or file listings which are sorted by price (PD vs. Shareware), or which include name, phone, etc. of commercial product producers, html/FTP listings and much more are all possibilities. Your custom format will be listed in the menu in future editions of the conversion program. For PC-Board sysops who want to get going quickly with a default setup, pre-formatted directory listings in the format chosen by the World Data Network BBS (WDN.com) are available by request. You can also Telnet to Online Welcome in South Africa (bbs.onwe.co.za) for an alternate style.
Specialized Doors
The PC Products Database may be placed on-line for immediate searches by BBS users. Tom Faulkner (Voice:+1(919)403-9473) produces a TDBS program to let your callers search the PC Products Database or our library directory databases on-line for $25. PCBoard PPEs, with PPL source code, are available for the PC Products Database and all CD-ROM collection directory databases directly. Generic DOS programs for Door use with many BBSes are available for the technical library databases, and are under consideration for the PC Products Database.