Only 2 more days for 20% off vRD!

Just a reminder: when the year is over, so is our 20% discount on vRD 2008 (with a free upgrade to vRD 2009 in January). Visit our online shop and order today!

The joys of transatlantic dating

And no, I don’t mean long-distance romance, I mean the difference between American and European date formats.

visionapp just announced that the vRD beta test — for those of you lucky enough to have signed up — would be going through 09.01.2009. If you’re in Europe, you read that as the 9th day of January. Some folks in America have asked me why the beta test was going through September 1.

Yep, we do this on our website too — there are a few incidents where it’s American format on one page and European format on the next page. Rest assured, we’re working on getting everything formatted clearly. (We’re standardizing on the European format but spelling out the month — e.g, 09 Jan 2009.)

So if you’re a beta tester, get that feedback in by early January–you don’t have the summer to review it!

Brian Madden’s State of the Industry survey

Virtualization expert Brian Madden has released a “State of the Industry” survey, asking people in IT how they’re using Citrix or Microsoft TS and related products. This survey is going to help everyone in the industry, from vendors to end users, be more effective in their jobs and get better tools on the market.

Information on the survey (and a link to it) can be found here. If you’re an IT staffer who uses server-based, application delivery, or virtualization technology, I hope you’ll take this survey. It’s pretty comprehensive, but it’s online until the end of the year.

20% off vRD till December 31!

On January 19, 2009, you can download and purchase the new 2009 version of visionapp Remote Desktop at www.vRD2009.com. Featuring support for a number of additional connection protocols such as Citrix ICA, VNC, SSH, Telnet, and HTTP/S, vRD 2009 allows administrators to manage Citrix, UNIX/Linux, and Macintosh systems! In addition, vRD’s new extended database mode, comprehensive authorization concept, and improved display options make vRD 2009 an even more valuable tool for administrative users.

Order vRD 2008 before the end of the year and get a 20% discount—PLUS a free upgrade to vRD 2009! vRD 2009 also features a new licensing model, adjusted to today’s markets. The graduated prices for individual licenses start at $88.00 per administrator. We also offer a country license starting at $2,190 and a global license starting at $3,590. All prices exclude taxes (where appropriate) and include a one-year upgrade and support package. (If you purchased support for vRD 2008, we’ll convert you to a global license, or a country license on request.)

Contact me if you have any questions — or go to the vRD online shop.

Marketing lessons from HubSpot?

I attended a Webinar this morning for “Marketing In A Recession,” given by Mike Volpe who is a VP at HubSpot, and one of our marketing vendors.

One of his points was that during a recession, one must use marketing dollars more wisely and use “brains not budget.” For this, Volpe suggested, abandon your external marketing programs like print advertising, direct mail, and telesales, and implement programs in inbound marketing, especially social media. Start a blog, get on Twitter, create content; then publicize the living bejeezus out of it on Flickr and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and FriendFeed and Slideshare and everything else you can think of.

Having been to a few marketing events over the last three months, including the excellent MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, I believe that Volpe and HubSpot aren’t covering the whole story. For marketers who are used to outbound marketing–from the sound of it, the audience of this webinar–the message has to be completely different. For visionapp’s outbound marketing, we focus on special discounts, or features and benefits, or cost savings, or ROI. The goal is to get people interested enough to enter the sales process.

However, for inbound marketing, and particularly in social media, almost no one will be interested in entering that sales process. Many of them got on Twitter because there was too much noise in their e-mail inbox. No one wants to have a conversation with someone who simply sends out sales messages. These new marketing media are vastly unexplored territory, and companies have been told (by many competent social media specialists) that traditional marketing messages and sales pitches absolutely do not work on Twitter or in blogs. No one will come to read your content if your content is simply a marketing message.

I haven’t figured out a way yet to get visionapp customers to enter into the conversation that visionapp employees are having internally–conversations that I really want prospects and customers to provide input on. Questions like, “Do you really think the iPhone ICA client is going to be a success, and will it drive XenApp use in the enterprise?” I’ve put that question out on Twitter and Facebook to no avail. Maybe that means that no one is interested in these topics; maybe it just means that very few people know about visionapp and what we do! But it definitely means that getting our name–and educating our audience–is going to require more than the “if you tweet it, they will come” attitude that Volpe and many, many other marketing pundits are advocating.