Turn one computer into two
Entering any new product on the market is almost always a difficult task. Especially in a narrow (little-known) niche. Especially software in a country where they are not used to paying for software.
I want to share a successful history of the product, to which I have something to do for several years.
For a start, briefly about the essence of the software. This is a program for "vents", which allows from 2 to 10 users to work with one computer as if each has its own individual. We connect monitors to the system unit (via additional video cards), mouse-claves (via USB hubs), install the program - and you can watch different movies at the same time (though you need to make split-sound 5.1 for this, or install additional ones), use the Internet and trite to work with documents.
')
Analogs, of course, have already been. This is also a hardware version - JetWay, Buddy B-210 board and still alive software BeTwin and others ... But we learned about that later.
The idea of ​​creating “Aster” was born at that moment when it became very sad to look at the super-computers that are being bought in order to work with Word and other paper-making software. In fact, it turned out the next turn of the spiral. A long time ago, when the computers were large, all resources were shared between the terminals.
It makes no sense to describe how all this connects and works - absolutely nothing. With this today and the student will cope. Computer resources are divided as needed between workstations (this is done by the operating system itself), or rather, Windows sessions that are run separately for each "terminal".
Two resources were specially divided: for two users (home users) and from 3 to 10 (corporate). Accordingly, there are two sites:
www.ibik-soft.com - for home
www.ibik.ru - for corporate
They differ slightly in the supply of material.
In due time, in order to keep up with our competitors, we collected materials about similar developments and put everything in the " Articles " section. Admired the decision of the company Userful , which did the same as we, but under Linux, so even with ready-made software packages to fully ensure multi-user access points in libraries, educational and medical institutions!
For testing, we decided to use the toughest testers - our potential buyers, for whom they released a free trial version with some limitations and gave the opportunity to discuss the program on our forum. As a result, we brought the product to a state of stable operation and began to sell.
It is clear that first of all we thought about saving on the purchase of system managers (up to 60% using the 6-job version), like most of our current customers, but literally after six months of testing and using our own product in our office, others began to notice nice features:
- saving space and no need to pull "lokalku"
- smaller electricity bills, which was important for our startup
- silence in the office! Nothing buzzes and no noise!
- maintenance and upgrading of just one computer instead of six!
Not without curiosities. One of the buyers happily wrote that he managed to save a million on the purchase of AutoCAD. He forced only one installation to work at 12 (!) Workplaces connected to one system unit using Aster. We still do not understand how he did it.
About 5-6 years ago there was a version of the program for XP. And the testing of the Aster version for the seven has now been completed and it will soon be on sale.
And now a little about the very success.
At first, sales were weak. We really hoped for the dealer network that our talented manager Peter worked for all over Russia and CIS countries in just half a year, and especially for this we released a boxed version, but we quickly realized that dealers only meet the demand and are not going to promote our product on their own. And if there is no demand, there is no sales.
Almost the only thing that helped us was the boxed version - Aster became a truly licensed product with high-quality operating instructions and a normal technical support forum.
Therefore, we have thrown all efforts to inform our consumers that such a solution is possible at all. First, several articles appeared in Computerra, PC Magazine and several other magazines, then articles and banners on the software portals of the Runet. All the same, the return was not ice.
In "Computerra", by the way, my article appeared in the April Fool's number and many readers stupidly did not believe us.
Then we conducted a comparative analysis with the closest “hardware” analogue - thin clients and found a number of advantages (for example, the very mediocre thin client work with streaming media), which in many ways helped us to conquer part of the market.
In addition to the above, we began to use contextual advertising and search engine optimization to attract potential buyers to a page with a comparative article that describes the advantages of Aster and the bottlenecks of thin clients. It worked.
About us began to mention more in blogs, on visited forums. Aster appeared in most online stores Runet - Softkey, Allsoft and others.
Several educational exhibitions helped us a little to hook on the area of ​​equipping computers of small schools. As a result, our program successfully works in rural schools of Chuvashia. Perhaps, we were helped by the fact that at the exhibition we had a lot of fun at Quake 3 and everyone was wondering how it could be in one box. Some were looking for hidden computers behind the stand.
In total, three of our sites (two Russians and one in English) do not come that much per month - only about 500 visitors a day, but aside from Russia, Aster has already been successfully sold abroad and used in Germany, Brazil, France, Canada and the CIS countries .
This is what we managed to achieve in about 4 years. I hope this story will help someone improve their product and make it more successful.
I want to share a successful history of the product, to which I have something to do for several years.
For a start, briefly about the essence of the software. This is a program for "vents", which allows from 2 to 10 users to work with one computer as if each has its own individual. We connect monitors to the system unit (via additional video cards), mouse-claves (via USB hubs), install the program - and you can watch different movies at the same time (though you need to make split-sound 5.1 for this, or install additional ones), use the Internet and trite to work with documents.
')
Analogs, of course, have already been. This is also a hardware version - JetWay, Buddy B-210 board and still alive software BeTwin and others ... But we learned about that later.
The idea of ​​creating “Aster” was born at that moment when it became very sad to look at the super-computers that are being bought in order to work with Word and other paper-making software. In fact, it turned out the next turn of the spiral. A long time ago, when the computers were large, all resources were shared between the terminals.
It makes no sense to describe how all this connects and works - absolutely nothing. With this today and the student will cope. Computer resources are divided as needed between workstations (this is done by the operating system itself), or rather, Windows sessions that are run separately for each "terminal".
Two resources were specially divided: for two users (home users) and from 3 to 10 (corporate). Accordingly, there are two sites:
www.ibik-soft.com - for home
www.ibik.ru - for corporate
They differ slightly in the supply of material.
In due time, in order to keep up with our competitors, we collected materials about similar developments and put everything in the " Articles " section. Admired the decision of the company Userful , which did the same as we, but under Linux, so even with ready-made software packages to fully ensure multi-user access points in libraries, educational and medical institutions!
For testing, we decided to use the toughest testers - our potential buyers, for whom they released a free trial version with some limitations and gave the opportunity to discuss the program on our forum. As a result, we brought the product to a state of stable operation and began to sell.
It is clear that first of all we thought about saving on the purchase of system managers (up to 60% using the 6-job version), like most of our current customers, but literally after six months of testing and using our own product in our office, others began to notice nice features:
- saving space and no need to pull "lokalku"
- smaller electricity bills, which was important for our startup
- silence in the office! Nothing buzzes and no noise!
- maintenance and upgrading of just one computer instead of six!
Not without curiosities. One of the buyers happily wrote that he managed to save a million on the purchase of AutoCAD. He forced only one installation to work at 12 (!) Workplaces connected to one system unit using Aster. We still do not understand how he did it.
About 5-6 years ago there was a version of the program for XP. And the testing of the Aster version for the seven has now been completed and it will soon be on sale.
And now a little about the very success.
At first, sales were weak. We really hoped for the dealer network that our talented manager Peter worked for all over Russia and CIS countries in just half a year, and especially for this we released a boxed version, but we quickly realized that dealers only meet the demand and are not going to promote our product on their own. And if there is no demand, there is no sales.
Almost the only thing that helped us was the boxed version - Aster became a truly licensed product with high-quality operating instructions and a normal technical support forum.
Therefore, we have thrown all efforts to inform our consumers that such a solution is possible at all. First, several articles appeared in Computerra, PC Magazine and several other magazines, then articles and banners on the software portals of the Runet. All the same, the return was not ice.
In "Computerra", by the way, my article appeared in the April Fool's number and many readers stupidly did not believe us.
Then we conducted a comparative analysis with the closest “hardware” analogue - thin clients and found a number of advantages (for example, the very mediocre thin client work with streaming media), which in many ways helped us to conquer part of the market.
In addition to the above, we began to use contextual advertising and search engine optimization to attract potential buyers to a page with a comparative article that describes the advantages of Aster and the bottlenecks of thin clients. It worked.
About us began to mention more in blogs, on visited forums. Aster appeared in most online stores Runet - Softkey, Allsoft and others.
Several educational exhibitions helped us a little to hook on the area of ​​equipping computers of small schools. As a result, our program successfully works in rural schools of Chuvashia. Perhaps, we were helped by the fact that at the exhibition we had a lot of fun at Quake 3 and everyone was wondering how it could be in one box. Some were looking for hidden computers behind the stand.
In total, three of our sites (two Russians and one in English) do not come that much per month - only about 500 visitors a day, but aside from Russia, Aster has already been successfully sold abroad and used in Germany, Brazil, France, Canada and the CIS countries .
This is what we managed to achieve in about 4 years. I hope this story will help someone improve their product and make it more successful.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/109183/
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