We continue to experience excellent traction on the customer acquisition front since we launched the DotNetNuke Professional Edition in February. Since the Professional Edition release, we have signed close to 150 customers, each purchasing anywhere from 1 to 10 instances of the product. The customers range from enterprising business owners looking for a smart piece of software to power the 'front end' of their business to multi-billion dollar organizations using the software for their web site, intranet/extranet or as their internal web application standard.
In this process we learned more about the market, what customers need, and the problems they are trying to solve. We discovered some common customer needs that weren’t being served. We heard from customers:
"We need support outside of 9:00 am and 6:00 pm Pacific time. We need a wider support window." -- Only a few companies wanted 24/7 support with most simply wanting extended hours.
"Web support is fine but if something is wrong, we would like to be able to call a person." --- A need for a number to call and a person to speak to (i.e., a more personal touch).
"The product is fine. Can you help me install it or at least get me started?" --- A significant number of our customers are new to DotNetNuke and they need some hand holding to get going.
"We want access to the source code." - Some want it as insurance or security while others want access so they can modify the source code.
In order to meet the above needs, we are launching the 'DotNetNuke Elite Edition'.
Larger customers had some more needs in addition to those above:
"This is open source. We want to be sure we don't get into trouble for using this. Can you provide a higher level of indemnification than offered with the Professional Edition?" --- We repeatedly heard the need for much greater indemnification than the value of the software itself.
"We can't use your standard contract. Can you use ours?" --- Flexibility in going back and forth with their legal department in crafting and agreeing on the contract.
In order to meet the needs of this subset of customers, we are launching the 'DotNetNuke Elite Edition Premier'.
Doug Howell will be in touch with our DotNetNuke Fusion Partner Program Partners both to communicate the above offerings; and provide more information. Our marketing and sales teams will begin making these offers available to our customers in the next few days.
Thank you and have a wonderful week!