[JD]

As soundman said, they recover their investment through the sale of the hardware. What this often means is that the dongle is not generic. There is something programmed or hardwired into it that the software then looks for. The Charmsys software may be the exception. Just downloaded it myself (it is free) and from what I understand it will work with a generic dongle. Haven't got that far as something is balking on my computer! (Probably Norton, as the latest version has gotten quite tyrantical! )