From: Ray Byrne <ray@in4media.co.uk>
Date: September 6, 2012 4:27:17 AM MDT
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Astro IIDC 4.09.00 site updated
Hi Milton and All,
I've said it before but would like to confirm that my hat is firmly in the ring for any help in the Marcomms dept. that I can offer - Gratis. I really like Alan's ideas here and with a good re-brand process it could be a winner, I mean who knows about AstroIIDC, I'm sure we can at least enlighten a few folks.
ATB
Ray
On 5 Sep 2012, at 18:43, Alan Friedman wrote:
Hi Milton,
Many of us are working to try to keep businesses solvent and pay the bills. It hasn't been an easy time.
I don't know your goals well enough to suggest a direction for your business. But I will share a few observations - many of which are gleaned from fellow users who have shared their thoughts in recent weeks.
1. Astro IIDC is a fully fleshed and working application with a potential for continued revenue stream. To "kill" it seems to serve no purpose. If you prefer not to invest further time in development, sales or support, find a way to simplify the sales and download process and empower the user group to provide support for new sales.
2. Divide the program into a basic and advanced versions. The basic version provides camera control only… the advanced version includes image processing. The program has become large and feature laden, with some learning curve issues. A simplified capture program would be easier to sell in a new campaign and might reach out to a broader user group (including education) with the potential to draw users to the processing side as they gain experience.
3. Outsource the marketing communications. Get help with creation of a website that fully expresses the potential of the product. Showcase the work and images that have been done with the software. Collaborate with someone who can build relationships with the camera manufacturers whose products your software supports… and with Apple.
I believe that there are current users who might be willing to assist in some of these efforts. My images are and have always been available to you for the purposes of communicating what your software can achieve. I think I can say the same for Stephen, Jim, Brian, Alberto and many others.
Whether these ideas could work to solve the financial situation you find yourself in, I do not know. But assuming you find some enjoyment from what you've achieved, it seems just as easy to find a cost effective way to maintain the investment rather than driving it into a tree.
with best wishes,
Alan
Alan Friedman
On Sep 5, 2012, at 12:32 PM, Milton Aupperle wrote:
Hi Guys;
I have basically zero revenue Revenue coming in from sales of Astro
IIDC since The Venus transit in June - so what am I supposed to do
here to keep paying my bills?
The Lions share of my contract work (which is the only thing keeping
Astro IIDC afloat) over the past 4 years was paid for by USA
organizations , like Nasa, Navy, Army, White Sands Missile Range,
Homeland Security and medical companies (which needed clearance from
the FDA for their projects) through contractors. Very little comes
from "big greedy corporations" - the rest came from small privately
owned companies that might have 3 to 30 employees and are doing Niche
market stuff. This was all funded by the government revenues. I was
told by my contacts with these various groups that they knew their
budgets were going to be slashed, if there was a change in government.
That is what the told me 6 months before the election and is what
happened. Companies do not want Mac developers anymore because they
can read the writing on the wall.
Apple only factors in here because they have discontinued both
QuickTime and now QTKit, and will lock the platform down completely
(ie. software will be sold on the Apple Store only). The announcement
that I had been expecting was made official yesterday on the Apple
QuickTime list - QTKit is now end of lifed in Mountain Lion. The
replacement AVFoundation only works with horribly compressed MP4 video
and has no plugin architectures or ability to do anything except MP4
video. It's buggy and has exceedingly poor samples and documentation
if any. To mitigate that I have to build my own movie file format to
replace it - including players and converters to convert the video to
MP4 which is all that Apple will support going forward.
As to alternative funding options that people keep talking about , I
don't see any but I am willing to hear them out. I already explained
that there simply are not enough existing customers over the past 4
years to generate enough revenue with a subscription model of $100
per year pay for development and support going forward. I also believe
that I have reached all the Mac imagers that there are that do Image
science, which is in the low hundreds of users. Check the number of
subscribers on the Mac astronomy lists hosted by Yahoo
(MacAstronomers, Equinox, Astro IIDC) and there aren't more than 400
subscribers per list. And if I increase my price, people will just
switch to Windows where they provide a capture Application with the
cameras and it's "good enough". That is where people are going
especially in a tough economic climate.
If I take a full time job, I will not have the energy or time at the
end of the day to do massive architectural changes that Apple will
enforce going froward. So the only way this works is that Astro IIDC
generates enough revenue to continue to pay the bills.
So what "options" am I missing here?
Milton J. Aupperle