December 1, 2010 at 19:41Turn one computer into two
The introduction of any new product to the market is almost always a difficult task. Especially in a narrow (little-known) niche. Especially software in a country where you are not used to paying for software yet.
I want to share the successful history of the product, to which I have some relation for several years.
To begin with briefly about the essence of software. This is a program for "windows", which allows from 2 to 10 users to work with one computer as if each has its own individual one. We connect monitors (via additional video cards), keyboard mice (via USB hubs) to the system unit, put the program in, and you can watch different films at the same time (though for this you need to either split 5.1 sounds or install additional ones), use the Internet and corny work with documents.
Analogs, of course, were already. This is a hardware option - JetWay, Buddy B-210 and still live software BeTwin and others ... But we learned about this later.
The idea of creating Aster was born at the moment when it became very sad to look at super-computers that are bought in order to work with Word and other paper-based software. In fact, it turned out the next round of the spiral. A long time ago, when the computers were large, all resources were shared between the terminals.
There is absolutely no sense in describing how all this connects and works. With this today, the student will cope. Computer resources are divided as necessary between workstations (this is done by the OS itself), or rather, Windows sessions, which are launched separately for each "terminal".
Two resources were specially divided: for two users (home) and from 3 to 10 (corporate). Accordingly, two sites appeared:
www.ibik-soft.com - for the home
www.ibik.ru - for the corporate
They are slightly different in the presentation of the material.
At one time, in order not to lag behind competitors, we collected materials about such developments and brought everything into the “ Articles ” section . I admired the decision of Userful , which did the same as us, but under Linux, and even with ready-made software packages to fully provide multi-user access points in libraries, educational and medical institutions!
For testing, we decided to use the toughest testers - our potential buyers, for whom we released a free trial version with some limitations and made it possible to discuss the program on our forum. As a result, we brought the product to a state of stable operation and started selling.
It is clear that first of all we thought about saving on the purchase of system engineers (up to 60% when using the version with 6 workstations), like most of our customers today, but literally after six months of testing and using our own product in our office, others began nice features:
- space saving and no need to pull the LAN;
- lower electricity bills, which was important for our startup
- silence in the office! No buzzing and noisy!
- Maintenance and modernization 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 (!) Workstations connected using Aster to one system unit. We still do not understand how he did it.
About 5-6 years ago, a version of the program for XP appeared. And now testing of the Aster version for the seven has already been completed and soon it will go on sale.
And now a little about success itself.
At first, sales were weak. We really hoped for a dealer network built in just six months across Russia and the CIS countries, which was handled by our talented manager Peter, and specifically for this we released a boxed version, but quickly realized that dealers only satisfy 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 the boxed version helped us with - Aster has become a truly licensed product with a high-quality operation manual and a normal technical support forum.
Therefore, we have put all our efforts into informing our consumers that such a solution is even possible. First, several articles appeared in Computerra, PC Magazine and several other magazines, then articles and banners on the Runet software portals. All the same, the return was not ice.
In "Computerra", by the way, my article was published in April Fools' Day and many readers stupidly did not believe us.
Then we conducted a comparative analysis with the closest hardware counterpart - thin clients and found a number of advantages (for example, the mediocre work of thin client 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.
They began to mention us more in blogs, on visited forums. Astaire appeared in most online stores of Runet - Softkey, Allsoft and others.
Several educational exhibitions have helped us a little hook on the area of equipping low-grade schools with computers. 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 fun chopping up in Quake 3 and everyone was wondering how it could be in one box. Some were looking for hidden computers behind a stand.
In total, not so many come to our three sites (two Russian and one in English) a month - only about 500 visitors a day, but besides Russia, Aster is already successfully sold abroad and is 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 helps someone improve their product and make it more successful.
I want to share the successful history of the product, to which I have some relation for several years.
To begin with briefly about the essence of software. This is a program for "windows", which allows from 2 to 10 users to work with one computer as if each has its own individual one. We connect monitors (via additional video cards), keyboard mice (via USB hubs) to the system unit, put the program in, and you can watch different films at the same time (though for this you need to either split 5.1 sounds or install additional ones), use the Internet and corny work with documents.
Analogs, of course, were already. This is a hardware option - JetWay, Buddy B-210 and still live software BeTwin and others ... But we learned about this later.
The idea of creating Aster was born at the moment when it became very sad to look at super-computers that are bought in order to work with Word and other paper-based software. In fact, it turned out the next round of the spiral. A long time ago, when the computers were large, all resources were shared between the terminals.
There is absolutely no sense in describing how all this connects and works. With this today, the student will cope. Computer resources are divided as necessary between workstations (this is done by the OS itself), or rather, Windows sessions, which are launched separately for each "terminal".
Two resources were specially divided: for two users (home) and from 3 to 10 (corporate). Accordingly, two sites appeared:
www.ibik-soft.com - for the home
www.ibik.ru - for the corporate
They are slightly different in the presentation of the material.
At one time, in order not to lag behind competitors, we collected materials about such developments and brought everything into the “ Articles ” section . I admired the decision of Userful , which did the same as us, but under Linux, and even with ready-made software packages to fully provide multi-user access points in libraries, educational and medical institutions!
For testing, we decided to use the toughest testers - our potential buyers, for whom we released a free trial version with some limitations and made it possible to discuss the program on our forum. As a result, we brought the product to a state of stable operation and started selling.
It is clear that first of all we thought about saving on the purchase of system engineers (up to 60% when using the version with 6 workstations), like most of our customers today, but literally after six months of testing and using our own product in our office, others began nice features:
- space saving and no need to pull the LAN;
- lower electricity bills, which was important for our startup
- silence in the office! No buzzing and noisy!
- Maintenance and modernization 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 (!) Workstations connected using Aster to one system unit. We still do not understand how he did it.
About 5-6 years ago, a version of the program for XP appeared. And now testing of the Aster version for the seven has already been completed and soon it will go on sale.
And now a little about success itself.
At first, sales were weak. We really hoped for a dealer network built in just six months across Russia and the CIS countries, which was handled by our talented manager Peter, and specifically for this we released a boxed version, but quickly realized that dealers only satisfy 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 the boxed version helped us with - Aster has become a truly licensed product with a high-quality operation manual and a normal technical support forum.
Therefore, we have put all our efforts into informing our consumers that such a solution is even possible. First, several articles appeared in Computerra, PC Magazine and several other magazines, then articles and banners on the Runet software portals. All the same, the return was not ice.
In "Computerra", by the way, my article was published in April Fools' Day and many readers stupidly did not believe us.
Then we conducted a comparative analysis with the closest hardware counterpart - thin clients and found a number of advantages (for example, the mediocre work of thin client 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.
They began to mention us more in blogs, on visited forums. Astaire appeared in most online stores of Runet - Softkey, Allsoft and others.
Several educational exhibitions have helped us a little hook on the area of equipping low-grade schools with computers. 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 fun chopping up in Quake 3 and everyone was wondering how it could be in one box. Some were looking for hidden computers behind a stand.
In total, not so many come to our three sites (two Russian and one in English) a month - only about 500 visitors a day, but besides Russia, Aster is already successfully sold abroad and is 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 helps someone improve their product and make it more successful.