Really Great Software; Plus A Few Requests

[shmooty1]

Like many IT Professionals, I have a small list of friends and family that I provide ongoing computer support for. For a long time I've been looking for a good help desk 'like' software that I can use for remote control to aid the people I support by doing exactly what Anyplace Control allows - easily take over a remote computer to debug a problem or show someone exactly how to do something. I've been using the software now for a few months with a 5-license premium plan and it's working out really well.

I live in the U.S., and I have family here that I support, and friends both in the U.S. and abroad. This past April I was visiting a close friend who lives in Spain, and while there I upgraded his computer to Windows 7. Part of this upgrade was to replace his hard drive with a new larger one. Everything was working well for a few months and then a few weeks back he started having problems and didn't know what to do. Previously he was on Windows XP and hadn't experienced any major computer problem for several years. My upgrade 'shook things up' and I don't know if it was a user issue or a hardware issue, but he started emailing me with all kinds of error messages he was getting that didn't make any sense. I had just previously purchased Anyplace Control to support my parents, brother, and one friend elsewhere in the U.S., and I had one license remaining from my initial purchase. I gave him that license; he loaded up the host module and I took control of his computer and he was truly overjoyed to have me take control and fix his problems. I was able to remotely access his machine, run some diagnostic software, and ultimately fix everything. He was happy; I'm happy, and I think this software is really great.

My one request is that you should create an additional tier for type of user. In the basic and premium category your licensing seems to be designed more for people who want to control their own remote computers, where they would direct access to them to load up the software which then gets tied to a specific computer. I'm not using the software for this purpose, though the pricing for this type of user is within an acceptable range. On the other hand, you do have a help desk version for Small Business, however the pricing for that one is a little too expensive. You really need a version for someone like myself who's not in business to provide remote computer support, but does so for specific friends and family. Why don't you call it the 'Friends and Family Support Plan'.

Because of the way you charge for your licenses, I found it very difficult to figure out how many I needed to purchase initially. I wanted the greatest discount I could get, but realistically I can't imagine ever supporting more than a half dozen people - My Dad, My Mom, My Brother, My Uncle and two friends, one in California and one in Spain. I would think that worst case scenario other people like myself would never exceed a dozen people, however at $20 or so per license it doesn't make sense to purchase a dozen licenses; that puts me into the cost range of the Small Business help desk. So I purchased 5 licenses initially, just enough to get the mid level license rate. Then last weekend I wanted to add another friend and found out that in order to do so it would cost $48 for that license even though I had already purchased the 5 previous licenses and was charged the $22 rate. I would suggest to you that there are a lot of IT professionals like myself who support friends and family and that if you were to release a copy of your software to support say 10 people for around $150-$175 that would be attractive and within the amount of money someone like myself would spend on a product like this. What I really need is the functionality of the Small Business help desk plan but for less people and that doesn't cost be $400. Do you see my point?

Additionally, if you don't like the idea of releasing a flat priced version that supported up to a certain number of people, I would request that the license cost be cumulative and not based solely on the first purchase. If I only needed to support my parents and my brother initially, I should be able to buy two licenses. Then, over time when I've purchased enough individually to get me to the next pricing tier, the price should drop based on the total number of licenses I've bought to date. That's the way most other software companies license their product, and it's one under which you still make money for additional licensing but you also reward your customers who are loyal to you by lowering the licensing cost based on the total number purchased.

Lastly, I don't understand why you tie the license to a specific computer as opposed to a specific person. For instance, my Dad owns two houses with a computer in each, and he also has a notebook. The service that you provide that is a significant value add to me is your server that makes the seamless connection between the host product my Dad is running and the admin product that I'm running. This is called a managed service. As a managed service provider, you control the user who is accessing the server. From my perspective I don't think it's fair that I should have to purchase 3 licenses in order to support my Dad who owns two computers and a notebook. At the same time I understand your position that you want better control over piracy because if you don't tie the host module to something that's fixed it could easily be mis-used. Instead, why don't you consider distributing hard token cards and tieing your software to the card instead of the computer it's located on? I would gladly pay an extra fee to cover the cost of a token that I could send to the people I want to provide support for. For instance, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Paypal and the Paypal Security Card, are you? It's an inexpensive credit card size token from NagraID called the ICT DisplayCard which in Paypal's case uses VeriSign Identity Protection. You press a button and the LCD displays a six digit code, without which you can't log in. RSA has a similar card for their SecureID system as well.

So I'm hoping you'll see that there are IT professionals like myself that don't run help desks and don't support more than a few family members and a few friends for whom your product would fit quite nicely if you just changed a few things relating to how you license and sell your product. I don't think you're currently marketing to this niche and I believe that it's a good one for you to recognize.

Thank you for your time.

[Administrator]

Thank you very much for your feedback.
We can offer the following solutions to users like you:
1) We can sell additional licenses with discounted price (volume discounts are valid).
2) In the future we plan to add new rate plan, which costs less than Small-Business Helpdesk, but allows to transfer licenses from one PC to another without need to purchase additional licenses.