We are not supposed to count the chickens before they hatch. But still I think we have a pretty cool application in the making. Its almost ready to hit the limelight. As you know we have a multi vendor shopping cart and a online site builder software. We have been getting a number of requests from clients on modifying either of it to a online store builder - so that they can offer it as a service similar to yahoo stores, volusion.com or prostores to their clients. So this would allow them to be an ASP / or SaaS provider easily. This would a great addition for hosting companies, design houses and marketplace communities.
We have a new online store builder in the making. Its independent of both iScripts Multicart and iScripts EasyCreate. Current plan is to allow the end user to select a domain or subdomain , select a payment plan and create store in that location on your server. he can customize the look and feel of the store, add edit categories, products , shipping etc.from the management panel with few clicks. I am not sure about the name yet. But we have been kicking around the name iScripts GoStores for now internally. I will update you once we finalize.
If you want to be keep posted about this application or you want participate in the beta trial let me know. Contact me at abraham(@)iscripts.com
Aji Abraham
iScripts has been offering online data backup for consumers over two years under the brand Backup2Net. We have decided to enhance our current solution based on all the customer feedback and experience, and make it into a private label service iScripts customers can offer. So if you ever wanted to start a online data backup service similar to the likes of carbonite, mozy, xdrive etc.. for individuals and small businesses here is your chance.
New product is tentatively named “iScripts Backuper”. You will receive a white labeled or private labelled client application (its the desktop application for your clients to manage and schedule backups). You will also receive the server software for billing, account management, backup management etc.. Off the shelf, you can start it as a stand alone online data backup service. If you have a another business ( say web site hosting or large virtual comnity) and you want to offer it as a addon service to increase your revenue, there might be some customization required. We will do the customization for you.
We are still working out the details of the new product offering and licensing. We will have more info in the coming weeks. We plan to have the new product solution introduced in the next 2-3 weeks. New versions of client application and server software are in the last stage of beta testing. Our current plan is to offer the white labelled client software for free and can provide unlimited users. If you need private label version, there would be a small addional cost. The server application would be on a monthly license per server, at present it is set at $99.95 per month for the first server.As the software is fairly complex we would install it and configure it for you. naturally this would require you to have a dedicated server or a virtual private server at the least. So the data would be backed up to your server where you choose. So effectively you can start a data backup service for no startup cost and close to $200 per month ( assuming dedicated server for $100 per month)
All of our current products are released as open source ( “source available” for you obessing about the definition of Opensource). As we are battling the piracy of our proprietary software, this one might be encrypted. This is not the road we had in mind, but looks like it is the one making more and more sense. Please contact us at (312)423-6728 or sales(at)iscripts.com with any questions, comments or feedback about the new product.
Aji Abraham
We have been getting more and more questions from our customers about hosting. A number of times clients web hosts do not allow specific features of the servers to be used. A key example is the FFEMPG for iScripts Visualcaster and iScripts Socialware 2.0 for video sharing. Number of customers have asked if we can recommend hosting providers. We are trying to be as neutral as possible when it comes to web hosts. A number of hosting providers are our distribution partners. So we do not want to promote some hosting companies vs. others. However it feels a majority of customers don’t care if the host with a third party provider vs another as long as the basic parameters like price, uptime, support etc.. are met.
So here is the question. If iScripts products are turned into a Software as a Service model, how likely you would use it vs the current Buy the script and upload into your servers.
Making the product into a SaaS model have a number of advantages. First of all you as the customer can focus on what’s important to you. No need to worry about the server type, upgrades, backup etc.. All the geek stuff will be taken care of by folks who love those.
You do not have buy the software. You pay a monthly fee for it which includes your hosting cost.
We spend a lot of time making sure the software runs on different platforms. With SaaS model we have controlled platforms. So we need not to spend our time making the product better, with new versions and new features
Piracy is an ongoing issue. With SaaS model it can be controlled very well. We can focus our efforts again to making the products greater instead of fighting people who tries to pirate our products.
Of course if you require customizations we would be available to do so, even with the new model. I think its a win -win for our customers and iScripts.
What do you think. Let me know.
Aji Abraham
