pedronoronha

Help improving a product

6 posts in this topic

Hello everyone,

I work for an integration software company. Our flagship product is a middleware that allows anyone with SQL knowledge to develop powerful integrations themselves using our pre-built connectors (to Salesforce, Dynamics, SharePoint, Quickbooks, etc). These integrations can be done from any custom software, in any programming language.

Three years ago, the company developed an OPC UA connector. This means that the flagship product can be used as an OPC UA Client, with powerful and easy to use integration capabilities.

I joined the company 6 months ago, tasked with improving and selling the product (up until now we had two trials that led to nowhere). I made some necessary QoL changes, but I still can't seem to get this off the ground.

I have contacted a lot of people, and although they find the idea appealing, they don't want to take a trial, and I can't seem to get the feedback I want to improve the product.

I would like to know if any of you could take some time to talk to me over a video call so I could show you what I have and you could provide me your feedback.

I hope this doesn't go against the rules. If it does and someone could point me to other communities (forums, groups, hell, even Facebook pages) where I could talk to people from the automation industry, I'd be very, very grateful!

 

Thanks everyone in advance!

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to me it sounds that the biggest problem is that there may be no trial versions or clear comparison with alternatives that shows advantages of your product (ease of use, raw performance, price advantage, documentation, support etc.). 

so maybe should consider offering something that has limited number of tags just to test drive, coupled with few tutorial videos and sample projects in different programming languages (VisualStudio etc.). to test full functionality trial version (same or another version) could also offer full functionality for some limited time. this way it could not be practical to abuse for real scenario (production for example) but still allow programmer to explore the product and see what can be done with it. 

 

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In today's market, all the big boys use NetSuite or SAP, you need built in hooks for those to compete with other middleware companies. 

Plus your market is not going to be PLC/DCS programmers, your target is bean counters, and you should mention  to them that it integrates with most control systems via OPC.  They will not know what that means, but maybe they will ask the local control people.

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You've had good advice from Panic and Ken, but I'll throw in one extra caveat.  BE sure to promote how your product is secure from hacks and exploits.  Does it utilize CIP Security along with OPC UA?  

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Hello panic, Ken and Bob,

Thank you so much for your feedback! 

 

@panic

We have a free trial version with full functionalities. As for examples, I did some quick demo videos using Excel, so I'll be sure to do some more examples with other programming languages. Thanks!

 

@Ken

We do not have an out of the box integration with Netsuite. We used to have an integration with SAP but I don't think there's anyone maintaining it anymore. I will check. Regarding the target being bean counters.. great insight! Something we thought about but still didn't move our marketing efforts there. Thanks!

 

@Bob

We currently don't support CIP Security. I will look into it! Thanks!

 

 

We also have a Blockchain sealing solution for documents that exist on your Document Management System (DMS). I am thinking of using the OPC UA connector to create automatic machine logs on the DMS and then seal them using Blockchain technology to prove that no one tampered with them. Could you give me your opinion on this?

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It's great that there is a free trial version with full functionalities. Good luck!

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