Sales success in the technology business comes not from selling technology, but from selling business solutions. No end of computing and Internet ventures have come a cropper because they failed to understand the difference. So it was a real pleasure the other day to come across a top entrepreneur who really gets it.
Paul Grayson is not one of the industry's best-known names, but he already has a clear track record for spotting new opportunities really early on. In the early 80s, he founded and led Micrografx, the creator of the first ever drawing program for the PC. Then in 1985, Micrografx became the very first independent software company to ship an application for Microsoft Windows.
Deciding to develop for Windows was an insightful and courageous move at such an early stage in its history. At the time, all PCs ran DOS and the only popular graphical user interface came on the Apple Mac. It was not until after the launch of Windows 3.0 in 1990 that Windows came into widespread use. That track record has earned Grayson the respect of top industry figures such as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with whom he appeared on stage at the launch of Windows 2000 last year, and Compaq chairman Ben Rosen, who is a personal investor in his latest venture.
By the mid-90s, Grayson was looking for a new challenge. He was aware of the development of Internet technologies, and realised that the Internet, like the PC and Windows, had the potential to become a new platform for computing. What opportunities would that produce?
The average geek or MBA graduate would have studied the technology to come up with product ideas. Grayson figured it would be smarter to start out in the real world. He knew about 3d modelling design and he knew about the product manufacturing industry. So he went out and asked manufacturing product designers what they needed that current technology wasn't giving them.
The result was a new venture called Alibre, which launched in the US in spring 2000 and came to the UK last week (Mar 19th). Alibre marries 3d modelling software with the Internet to solve the problems of communication between manufacturers and the companies they subcontract to make parts and components.
Although everyone in the manufacturing industry uses computer-aided modelling these days, they all use different systems. So when a manufacturer wants to send a component design to a subcontractor, the first thing they do is print it out on paper as a set of 2D drawings, a process that can take as long as 4 to 6 weeks. Then they ship the drawings to the subcontractor, and the subcontractor transcribes the drawings into their own CAD system, taking another 4 to 6 weeks. At that point, they may discover a need for modifications to fit their manufacturing process, as well as the inevitable errors introduced during the transcription process, so then they have to exchange a set of changed drawings.
Alibre cuts out all that delay at a stroke, shaving 8 weeks or more off the process. The manufacturer can transfer the design instantly across the Internet using Alibre's own 3d modelling client, and both parties can view the same file in real time while they discuss changes and modifications, even if they're located hundreds of miles apart.
At which point you may well ask, why did they never think of just using a modem to transfer the files, or burning a CD? Why have they still been transcribing everything to paper drawings when the technology to transfer the designs electronically has been around for at least a decade?
A perfectly reasonable question, to which there is no logical answer whatsoever. Doubtless they've seen a succession of sales people over the past ten years who've tried to sell them tape drives, modems, CD-writers, FTP servers and a whole host of other miracles of modern technology with the capability to sharply raise their productivity and time to market. Each one has been turned away, mystified as to why they've failed to make a sale.
There is a very human explanation why those sales weren't closed. These are designers, not technology geeks. They wouldn't know how to burn a CD or set up a modem to save their lives, and they certainly weren't prepared to risk their livelihood in the attempt.
Quite simply, they didn't have a system for safely and reliably transferring the files, and they didn't have the resources available to build one from scratch. What's different about Alibre is that it offers them more than raw technology. It offers them a complete solution that they can neatly slot straight away into their existing working practices.
That's not to say it isn't brimful of the latest technology under the covers. Having started from the point of view of what the industry needed, Grayson simply went ahead and did what was possible, without stopping to think how innovative it would turn out to be. Because the problem required a distributed, component-based technology to solve it, Alibre has ended up as one of the first business applications to be built out of component web services using a distributed peer architecture. To use all the buzzwords, it's an Internet-based B2B service delivered in an ASP model using a P2P architecture. Is that hot or what?
Just don't tell Alibre's customers. They'd probably be scared off by the thought of depending on so much up-to-the-minute technology. They just want a business solution that does the job. Alibre will succeed by giving them just that, enabled by technology but not in thrall to it.
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