For those of us who build software, creating a new software product is usually fun and exciting. There are new challenges, the opportunity to use new tools and techniques, and there is a special thrill of seeing something work for the first time. But unless you have the luxury of building software solely for your own entertainment, once you’ve got that great new product built, you have to figure out how to get it to your customers. At Vitrium, much of the software that we build is web-based, so the issue of delivering software to our users is really just one of ensuring browser compatibility.
But if you work at a company that delivers software for the desktop, you typically have to build an installer — a second piece of software whose job is to get your actual software successfully running on the users’ machines. There is no joy in writing in installers. I’ve worked at companies where we had to build installers for our software, and it’s amazing how much time and effort was required to build and maintain them.
The reason for that is that the installer is a piece of software whose primary responsibility is to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the millions of computers out there. Different operating systems, different utilities, firewalls, proxy servers, pieces of software that have been removed or modified by the user — the list goes on. These are all things that could potentially cause your software not to work on a given computer. So the installer has to identify and, where possible, resolve these problems. And no matter how hard you try, there will always be a steady stream of issues that come up: combinations of software that the installer doesn’t handle, configurations that have never been seen before, software versions that behave in subtly different ways, even gracefully handling upgrading from previous versions of your own software.
That’s why, at Vitrium, it has always been our goal to produce software that doesn’t need installers. Our applications are delivered over the web. The PDF’s produced by our products use standard Adobe software that already exists on almost every computer on the planet. The result is that we have essentially no support costs related to getting our products onto people’s computers. And that is good for us, and for our customers.
For those of us who build software, creating a new software product is usually fun and exciting. There are new challenges, the opportunity to use new tools and techniques, and there is a special thrill of seeing something work for the first time. But unless you have the luxury of building software solely for your own entertainment, once you’ve got that great new product built, you have to figure out how to get it to your customers. At Vitrium, much of the software that we build is web-based, so the issue of delivering software to our users is really just one of ensuring browser compatibility.
But if you work at a company that delivers software for the desktop, you typically have to build an installer — a second piece of software whose job is to get your actual software successfully running on the users’ machines. There is no joy in writing in installers. I’ve worked at companies where we had to build installers for our software, and it’s amazing how much time and effort was required to build and maintain them.
The reason for that is that the installer is a piece of software whose primary responsibility is to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the millions of computers out there. Different operating systems, different utilities, firewalls, proxy servers, pieces of software that have been removed or modified by the user — the list goes on. These are all things that could potentially cause your software not to work on a given computer. So the installer has to identify and, where possible, resolve these problems. And no matter how hard you try, there will always be a steady stream of issues that come up: combinations of software that the installer doesn’t handle, configurations that have never been seen before, software versions that behave in subtly different ways, even gracefully handling upgrading from previous versions of your own software.
That’s why, at Vitrium, it has always been our goal to produce software that doesn’t need installers. Our applications are delivered over the web. The PDF’s produced by our products use standard Adobe software that already exists on almost every computer on the planet. The result is that we have essentially no support costs related to getting our products onto people’s computers. And that is good for us, and for our customers.
If PDF is your preferred medium for issuing requests for quotes (RFQs) and requests for proposals (RFPs), you can now remotely control what the recipients can and cannot do with the file you send. Check out the article, An Arguement for SaaS: A look at on-demand project management and digital rights management services. Kenneth Wong showcases protectedpdf’s new Small Business Edition in Cadalyst Magazine!
A lot of people hate DRM. This can be a hard fact to face up to for those of us who happen to make a living in the Digital Rights Management software industry. If we’re going to provide our clients and their paying customers with DRM technology that really works, we will have to face up to the antipathy many people feel towards DRM.
The way I see it, that attitude is both instructive and unnecessary. That is to say, if more people in the DRM industry listened to their detractors, those detractors would have far fewer reasons to complain. While DRM companies and anti-DRM commentators may seem to have little common ground, there are some points we can all agree on.
For me, the key area of agreement is that a lot of DRM software makes life unnecessarily hard for legitimate users. In trying to protect their intellectual property rights and revenues, digital content providers often make access to content significantly more complex for their loyal, paying customers.
It should be the first rule of DRM that good content protection software doesn’t alienate legitimate users. Vitrium’s experience suggests that content providers already know this. It’s time for the DRM industry to catch on and start creating solutions that provide value to content providers and consumers alike.
Being open to new ideas is very important to everyone at Vitrium Systems. This openness is what has allowed us to prosper as an innovative PDF technology vendor. It’s also the reason we started this blog: it is vital for us to be actively involved an online conversation with our peers, colleagues and customers.
In the spirit of openness, we had a competition at our Vancouver office, to see who could come up with a name for the blog. Marketing assistant Michael Hobkirk had the winning entry. We feel that “The PDF Lounge” captures the spirit of what we want to provide: a welcoming place to discuss issues surrounding PDF technology and PDF content.
So, relax, make yourself at home and please feel free to join in the conversation. Over the coming months, we’ll be posting regularly on issues like content-based marketing, lead generation, Digital Rights Management, compliance, PDF forms and much, much more. Remember to check back regularly and – most of all – get involved!
