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| To say that there has been an unprecedented amount of bad news from the media in the last few weeks is a serious understatement, every Web site, TV channel and radio station seems to be telling us that it is all gloom and doom out there. But do the facts match the media hype that we are hearing? Our Atlanta, GA office has just set a new monthly sales record in September, with their highest sales month ever, boosted by strong purchasing from our Government customers in the US. Our European office in Reading just recorded our third highest sales month ever in September and our office in Tokyo just recorded identical sales to the same month last year. This allowed us to achieve our third highest sales month ever as a company, only beaten by April 2008 and March 2007. So we are seeing sales levels that contradict what we are hearing in the news, which is a little confusing. From what we can see - if you are keeping your products moving forward and investing in them to add new functionality or to move them to support new technology platforms - then your sales are likely to keep moving forward too. Customers are trying to make productivity gains right now and innovative software products or applications can help deliver that productivity boost. Remember that you can use ComponentSource to help you find new customers in other parts of the world that other more traditional sales channels cannot easily reach. If you have any specific questions about this topic please email: harryk@componentsource.com |
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If you are worried about your future sales and influenced by the negative media coverage, then it wouldn’t be surprising if you were tempted to drop your prices and have a massive "fire sale"... but be careful, by doing this you may actually cause your sales to drop. If you run a special offer at 25% off the list price - don’t be too surprised if you see a drop in your sales $ revenue. Remember - if you drop your prices by 25% - your unit volume needs to increase by 33.3% for you to make the same amount of money. The classic phrase from your Sales Manager: "Don’t worry boss, we’ll make it up in volume" should be completely ignored, don’t drop your prices if your sales are in decline already, it will only make it worse.
So what should you be doing? You should be investing in your products and releasing new versions regularly. LEAD Technologies started working with us in 1996 with LEADTOOLS V4 or V5 and they have just released LEADTOOLS V16 in 2008 - so LEAD has released a major new version in almost every calendar year, showing that they are continuously investing in the LEADTOOLS product range, moving the product forward to keep their customers happy with new functionality and reaping upgrade revenues as a result.
By focusing on the basics right now, you will do the right thing for your customers, your products and your business. Our customers are still buying new versions & new products. For example - they are buying new WPF products right now - so when are you going to release a WPF edition of your product for our new WPF Product Store? When will your product fully support SQL Server 2008? Our customers are buying lots of software that supports this latest database release from Microsoft. When did you last update your bestselling product? If you have not made a major release in the last 9-12 months - then you had better get a major release out the door in the next 2-3 months, or customers may start to get upset that you are not moving forward with your product.
Our customers always tell us they like to read about new releases, new products and new technologies - so are you focusing on the basics? You don’t have to rush out to support Silverlight immediately - but updating your existing products to support WPF or SQL Server 2008 would be a good place to start - then you can look at the next big thing... whatever that may be? Perhaps PDC next week will give us some clues! But remember to focus on the basics and get a new release out as soon as possible. If you have any specific questions about this please email: harryk@componentsource.com
New releases in our WPF Product store: https://www.componentsource.com/newreleases/wpf/index.html
New releases in our SQL Server store: https://www.componentsource.com/newreleases/sql-server/index.html
New releases in our Silverlight Product store: https://www.componentsource.com/newreleases/silverlight/index.html |
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US News - Meet us at Microsoft PDC in October - Sam Patterson will be attending the PDC event in October to find out about all the latest new releases and technology plans from Microsoft. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Sam, please email: samp@componentsource.com
European, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) News
Telerik acquires Vanatec ORM Products! Telerik, the largest component publisher in Europe, has announced that it has bought Vanatec and their ORM product called OpenAccess. Read the Telerik press release
Red Gate Software acquires .NET Reflector Product! Find out more from Red Gate
Asia/Pac News - GrapeCity acquires Data Dynamics! GrapeCity, the largest software component publisher in Japan, has just announced that it is buying all Data Dynamics products and existing customer base. Read their full press release
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