We went to South Padre Island on vacation for a week. It was a great time!

Here's the hotel we stayed at.

Ryan and I in the pool.

Ryan on the beech collecting shells.

We caught a lot of sand crabs at night.  We'd just catch them and then let them go once we finished.  We caught 34 in one evening without even trying very hard. The kids loved it.

Debbie, Ryan and Alex trying to smile into the sun.

The boys sleeping.

In business negotiations I work off a fairly straight forward principle: Enlightened self interest.

This principle has many other terms that describe it. Win-Win, success has many fathers, to name two. I don't approach negotiations as a zero sum game.  With partners and employees, we try to do everything we can to make sure they benefit from the deal as much as possible as long as we too are benefiting at an acceptable level.

Why? Because having other people rooting for your success is a sure-fire way to ensure your own long term success.  It is important to get other companies and people to see you as a means to their own success.

That's why I get really flummoxed when I occasionally run into someone who approaches negotiations as a win-lose proposition.  As if us benefiting somehow comes at their expense.  It doesn't happen often, thankfully, but when it does, I'm out in the cold in trying to try to understand their mindset.  I'll wrap my mind around it trying to figure out what I'm missing.

There are lots of really good examples which would illustrate my point really well but I am not at liberty to discuss them.  Most of the time, the scenario revolves around us being willing to do something we don't have to in order to benefit both parties (at our expense) but as a result we benefit from the transaction as much as the other party.   And they'll reject this because they object to us benefiting as much as we do.

Let me give one example that isn't nearly as good as the one that came up today but at least I can talk about it.  Skin authors.  Stardock will sometimes pay skin authors on a royalty basis of 20% to 25% on each sale of a premium skin.  We've had skin authors reject this offer because they don't think it is "fair" that we end up making so much more than they do. 

Now, putting aside all the costs and infrastructure that we bring to the table that justifies that amount, let's assume that we're just leeching off their work in some "unfair" manner. So what? The question isn't what percent they receive. The question is how much revenue will they get from working with us.  If their 25% comes out to being $4000 isn't that better than making 100% of $1000?  Does it matter if we made $12,000 and they "only" made $4000?

Game publishers we work with tend to find us very easy to deal with because we have no problem with royalty percentages.  We don't care how much the publisher is making off the title.  We only care about how much we are making.  We sincerely hope that our publishers make a killing on our titles because it gives them an incentive to work even harder promoting it.

Strategy First certainly benefited from that with Galactic Civilizations.  By letting Stardock sell the game directly from their website, we could justify helping out on the marketing in ways few publishers can dream of.  Direct sales enabled us to fund regular update releases of the game which kept the title in the store for a very long amount of time (a year and a half later and it's still available at Gamestop).

Strategy First, generaly, worked on the principle of enlightened self-interest in that case.  They didn't get revenue from sales that went through the website but they sold a lot more copies at retail. To my knowledge, Galactic Civilizations is the best selling Strategy First title of all time by a very very wide margin (i.e. higher than Kohan, Chrome, Orb, Europa Universalis, etc.). I mean not even close.  That wasn't because GalCiv was better but because of al the marketing we could put into the game long after release because of continued sales.  They won and we won.

So if you're in negotiations with someone, don't think about it as an adversarial relationship. Avoid that. And try to avoid companies that approach things that way. Try to work to ensure that both you and they benefit.  Becaues if they are benefiting and you are benefiting, then helping you succeed is in their best interest.

The first beta of ObjectDock Plus is now available! You can get the beta (and access all released versions of 1.x) by visit www.objectdock.com. 

Without customer loyalty, a company is doomed. That is especially true of small companies.  Take customers for granted and sooner or later, your company will find itself on hard times without loyal customers to see you through it.  It was loyal customers that saved Stardock when the OS/2 market collapsed and the company had to migrate to Windows.  Loyal Stardock customers purchased Object Desktop for Windows in 1998 even though there was little to it at the time.

Object Desktop in 1999 consisted of WindowBlinds 1.0, which was slow and flakey by today's standards, IconPackager, ControlCenter, Tab LaunchPad, and Association Wizard.  For $50, that was a pretty decent deal.

Today, Object Desktop consists of WindowBlinds 4, DesktopX 2, ObjectBar, IconPackager, Tab LaunchPad, IconDeveloper, SkinStudio Pro, WindowFX, IconX, DriveScan, Component Tray, Theme Manager, and Keyboard LaunchPad (along with a few other small programs).

That's over a dozen programs.  And it's still $50.

So what do these programs do?

Let's look at this screenshot. 

• WindowBlinds can change the Windows GUI. That's the title bar, push buttons, progress animations, Start bar, scrollbars, Explorer views, etc.  On its own it's $19.95 and GUI skinning programs or enablers have traditionally cost about $20 as well.

• IconPackager is the defacto standard way of changing all your Windows icons at once to other icons. It can also change virtually any icon, including program icons, on an individual basis. IconPackager is $15 on its own and is one of the most popular downloads of all time on the net.

• DesktopX lets you build your own desktop or extend your existing desktop.  See the clock and CPU meter? Those are some DesktopX widgets in action. DesktopX is $19.95 (soon to be $24.95) on its own. It can do some pretty amazing things and it's arguably worth far more than even $25.  It's the only program on the PC that can do widgets, fluid alpha blended animations, and desktop security in a single package. To try to do that with another package would cost hundreds of dollars.

• WindowFX lets you have shadows, scale windows on the fly, add special effects to minimizing and maximizing. It's quite a unique program and if you have a good video card, it's quite cool. It's $19.95 on its own.

• SkinStudio Pro lets you create skins for several different programs but most notably WindowBlinds and Windows Media Player. It is the ONLY program that can create skins for Microsoft's Windows Media Player (as well as WindowBlinds of course). It's $29.95 on its own. If you have SkinStudio installed, WindowBlinds can make use of not just WindowBlinds skins but MSStyles as well without having to hack your system DLLs.

• ObjectBar (not pictured) can do some pretty amazing things such as manipulate the system tray (make it into a menu for instance), create alternative Start bars, emulate any type of bar, wharf, finder, whatever you want to call it. It's $19.95 on its own.

• IconDeveloper is an outstanding way for regular people to create their own icons. Just take a graphics image and it'll turn it into a Windows icon and even provide the most common sizes for you. IconDeveloper is $20 on its own.

• IconX is what is letting me have my icons on my desktop look so good. See how they have shadows? That's only part of the story. When I move my mouse over them, they grow.  Totally configurable (so you can have them not grow but only glow or play a sound or do nothing at all except have a subtle shadow, it's up to you). IconX will be $10 when it's made available on its own.

• Tab LaunchPad isn't pictured but it lets you organize your programs through a handy tabbed interface. Tab LaunchPad is only available on Object Desktop.

• Theme Manager is pictured in the middle. It lets you treat all these customization programs as a single entity and work with them from a single interface. You can build and make use of Suites too!

• Keyboard LaunchPad isn't pictured but it is also one of the most useful programs out there.  For me, I can't imagine working without it. It lets you take almost any action and assign it to a hot key. So I can control my MP3 player with it, paste saved clipboards with it, visit a particular webpage (Ctrl-Shift-W takes me to WinCustomize.com for instance), and of course launch programs. Very useful.

• ObjectZIP extends the compressed folders on XP (And provides the ability to Win9x users and Win2K users) with a host of new features.

So you've got going on $200 of software all together and not only do you get all this stuff, but you get all the updates made to them for an entire year afterwards. And if we add anything new to Object Desktop (in 2003 we added Keyboard LaunchPad and IconDeveloper for example) you get those too.  And on top of that, Object Desktop users get discounts on other Stardock offerings such as ObjectDock Plus, CursorXP, Premium Suites, etc.  And all that for $50.

And this software gets updated on a regular basis and has been consistently updated for the past 5 years.

You can learn more about Object Desktop here.

Now, that said, Object Desktop != everything Stardock makes.  Because Object Desktop includes so much stuff, some users mistakenly believe that anything Stardock makes should be part of it.  I can tell you we agonize on that issue.  It's a very very delicate economic balance.  We believe that a big part of Object Desktop's appeal is the constant updating and improvements to the parts of it. 

In fact, last year one of our big pushes was to migrate users to Stardock Central, a new program that makes it much easier for users to interact with our software and retrieve updates more easily. It also lets users access various forums and chat with us directly in a built in IRC client.

To do that, you have to have a very very dedicated development team.  It is worth mentioning again that programs like WindowBlinds, IconPackager, and DesktopX have been in constant development by roughly the same team since 1999. That's 5 years.  Consider that for a second. How many desktop enhancements (or just small programs not made by the "mega companies") keep going for 5 years straight? Without mentioning specific programs, there is a considerable graveyard of desktop enhancements who came out after our programs did.  It's not easy to keep adding new things.  But we do. Why? Because it's economically viable to do so. We are able to make a living doing this - something many software developers can't say. They end up having to work on their programs in their spare time.  And ask any shareware developer, how fun is it to come home from work and answer 30 email from people who didn't bother to read the readme.txt? 

So while we can intellectually understand why a user might feel justified demanding that their Object Desktop subscription should include a subscription to the WinCustomize premium content or get them a copy of CursorXP or something, it's just not economically viable (not for $50).  Each time you add a new program to a suite, the cost to keep it going increases exponentially. Throw too many things on it and it all falls apart economically. You either have to raise the price to the next price point ($69.95 which would really upset a lot of people) or you have to stop updating programs which would make a lot of people upset because that's one of the major appeals -- users can count on our software to (as a whole) be updated.  It bears repeating - if you've followed the Windows software market for awhile, think of all the desktop enhancements (Freeware or payware) that have come out in 1999 and think of how many have either gone away entirely or stopped being updated?   Then look at that screenshot and look at the update dates.

So that's the story on that. Object Desktop is a suite of programs that lets you do some pretty amazing things to your Windows based computer. There is no set of programs out there even remotely similar in scope (at any price).  For $49.95 you get over a dozen individual programs which, if purchased on their own from us would cost almost $200. And the only reason the individual programs cost only that much is because we also price them so inexpensively.

In fact, Object Desktop just won PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for best Windows customization product.

[More Information on Object Desktop...]

ObjectDock is a freeware program that gives users the ability to easily manage their tasks and programs in a very slick way. It also supports plugins in the form of "docklets".

But...

Stardock has also been working on ObjectDock PLUS! The plus version features a ton of new features based off of our own use of ObjectDock and feedback from the thousands of ObjectDock users out there. Things that make ObjectDock Plus a very powerful yet simple program for turbo-charging your Windows desktop. 

Check out this preview to get an idea of what's coming.  ObjectDock Plus should be available in BETA form quite soon.  It will cost $19.95 for new users or $14.95 for current Object Desktop users.

 

ObjectDock Plus supports multiple docks on the desktop of different styles (tabbed and untabbed)

Tabbed docks can have the system tray in them. Hold down the left mouse button on a system tray item and you can change its image.

Taskbar items can be grouped together like the default Windows taskbar.

Docks can be moved to the edge and then docked where only the tabs show until the mouse goes over them. The size of tabs and docks are controlled from the easy to use configuration dialog.

Example of having multiple tabbed docks with just the tabs showing. 

Docks can be set up so that they're always on top (such as where the tabs show up on top of windows) or behave like normal windows that show up on top when you move your mouse to a specific position.

The tabs and dock backgrounds are skinnable. Use the ones in there or download more made by others. Change the color to any color you choose.

Organize your work as you like.

ObjectDock Plus supports Stardock fly-out menus (you have to see it in action to appreciate how cool this is). A great way to zip through graphic files drives, etc.

 

Manage your various docks through the ObjectDock Plus system tray item. Very straight forward to create and modify

CustomBar is a tiny 18 pixel high bar that sits at the top or bottom of your screen. It behaves very similiar to the taskbar, in that it is visible even when other programs are running. Unlike the taskbar, CustomBar allows you to place anything that you can dream of and build onto it. An extremely extensive prefab/plugin system makes your imagination the biggest limit.

The soap opera on the Macintosh platform continues apace as more details on the next version of MacOS X come out. In our last episode, we saw lots of debates over whether Apple's upcoming Dashboard is ripping off Konfabulator (a popular MacOS X program that has similar widget features as DesktopX has). There's a lot of debate on this and I think the final question is this: If Konfabulator didn't exist, would MacOS X have Dashboard.  We can debate that all day but I think the answer is no.  Everything else becomes secondary to that question. You either believe Apple would have added this feature that is amazingly similar in terms of what it does to Konfabulator or you believe they wouldn't have.

But there is a deeper issue here. An issue that is of interest to all users of OS enhancement software (especially Windows ones). That is the problem/benefit of taking software conceived and developed by independent developers and tying it into the OS. Microsoft is notorious for this kind of thing. That's why Object Desktop is conceived as a subscription as opposed to a box you buy at your local store.

OS tying has been elegantly explained here.

OS Tying

You tie an app or functionality to the OS by not making it available separately for a price. For example, when you one day arbitrarily decide that a full-featured calendaring app is now part of the OS, that app is tied to the OS. Users who simply want the performance improvements and greater hardware compatibility historically provided by OS upgrades, no longer have that choice.

I have talked about the potential damage OS tying does. The principle damage it does is take the wind out of innovation in a particular market as you are then at the mercy of the OS vendor. People who remember Windows 98 may remember the "channels" that came with it based on Active Desktop.  But that feature was inspired from a program called Pointcast. Pointcast was a real innovator who helped create a big trend during the late 90s called "Push" technology. It was really cool stuff.  But Microsoft co-opted it and put in Active Desktop.  It wasn't well implemented but it took the wind out of Pointcast's sails. Today, Pointcast.com takes you to one of those domain sales pages. They're gone.

Was Microsoft "evil" to do this? No.  Microsoft saw something that it believed people wanted and tried to deliver it to everyone. I'm not privy to what happened at Microsoft at the time or why the channels and Active Desktop got put aside but once Microsoft's channels went away, the whole field just disappeared. Would Push technology have matured into something truly great? We'll never know.

 

Point Cast vs Active Desktop Channels

Microsoft has become so notorious at OS tying over the years (instant messaging, ZIP, a skinnable Windows Media Player, UXTheme, Internet Explorer, MS Movie Maker, etc.) that when we started moving from OS/2 we were told going to Windows was insane. That as soon as we came up with something good, Microsoft would just rip us off.  Their suggestion: Develop for Linux or MacOS. 

Microsoft gets an unfair rap though. Apple has done the same thing for a long time.  Sherlock eventually sucked up all the innovations in Watson to the point that Watson died. And those who don't excuse Apple for everything can point out countless smaller examples.

Suffice to say, all the OS vendors do it.  As a sweeping generalization I'll say it's a bad trend with a handful of exceptions.  The exceptions are when the OS vendor decides to keep improving it (Instant Messenger and Windows Media Player come to mind).  It's bad when the OS vendor implements it half-assed and kills the market (Channels, Active Desktop, WinForms, arguably Internet Explorer -- read this, disk compression, News Reader in Outlook Express). 

Internet Explorer circa 1999 (5 years ago)

When an OS vendor gets into the act and bundles something into the OS, they effectively kill a market. Non-developers will retort "Well, if you make something that's better then what's included then people will buy it." Nonsense. Most shareware authors make their living largely from low hanging fruit. Most developers lack the marketing ability to clearly explain the benefit of their non-free program versus the "free" version in the OS.   There are exceptions of course (WindowBlinds sales took off when Windows XP came out and continue to grow). But in general it kills them.  That's because most third party programs sell very very few copies. I.e. sales are measured in the two digit field per week. Take away the low hanging fruit and that developer is pushed over the edge and the app disappears.

But the pressure on OS vendors to tie into the OS is great.  Tying popular program concepts into the OS is a lot cheaper than coming up with new stuff. Apple advocates point to how "innovative" MacOS Tiger is.  Balderdash.  While Expose is definitely quite innovative, I haven't seen too much true innovation in MacOS since the original release of MacOS X 4 years ago.  By contrast, Microsoft really is trying to do some neat things with Longhorn.  Some of these things, like Avalon, have a rough equivalent in MacOS X (Quartz).  But you have to give Microsoft credit for at least focusing on core features rather than simply lifting ideas from popular shareware programs and throwing them in there.  Admittedly, however, other than peer file sharing, Microsoft is running out of popular third party programs to lend into the OS (top downloads at Download.com last week).

So what's your view on OS tying?

Also, here is an article that disagree with my views that I thought was pretty interesting:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/07/konfab_confab

The soap opera on the Macintosh platform continues apace as more details on the next version of MacOS X come out. In our last episode, we saw lots of debates over whether Apple's upcoming Dashboard is ripping off Konfabulator (a popular MacOS X program that has similar widget features as DesktopX has). There's a lot of debate on this and I think the final question is this: If Konfabulator didn't exist, would MacOS X have Dashboard.  We can debate that all day but I think the answer is no.  Everything else becomes secondary to that question. You either believe Apple would have added this feature that is amazingly similar in terms of what it does to Konfabulator or you believe they wouldn't have.

But there is a deeper issue here. An issue that is of interest to all users of OS enhancement software (especially Windows ones). That is the problem/benefit of taking software conceived and developed by independent developers and tying it into the OS. Microsoft is notorious for this kind of thing. That's why Object Desktop is conceived as a subscription as opposed to a box you buy at your local store.

OS tying has been elegantly explained here.

OS Tying

You tie an app or functionality to the OS by not making it available separately for a price. For example, when you one day arbitrarily decide that a full-featured calendaring app is now part of the OS, that app is tied to the OS. Users who simply want the performance improvements and greater hardware compatibility historically provided by OS upgrades, no longer have that choice.

I have talked about the potential damage OS tying does. The principle damage it does is take the wind out of innovation in a particular market as you are then at the mercy of the OS vendor. People who remember Windows 98 may remember the "channels" that came with it based on Active Desktop.  But that feature was inspired from a program called Pointcast. Pointcast was a real innovator who helped create a big trend during the late 90s called "Push" technology. It was really cool stuff.  But Microsoft co-opted it and put in Active Desktop.  It wasn't well implemented but it took the wind out of Pointcast's sails. Today, Pointcast.com takes you to one of those domain sales pages. They're gone.

Was Microsoft "evil" to do this? No.  Microsoft saw something that it believed people wanted and tried to deliver it to everyone. I'm not privy to what happened at Microsoft at the time or why the channels and Active Desktop got put aside but once Microsoft's channels went away, the whole field just disappeared. Would Push technology have matured into something truly great? We'll never know.

 

Point Cast vs Active Desktop Channels

Microsoft has become so notorious at OS tying over the years (instant messaging, ZIP, a skinnable Windows Media Player, UXTheme, Internet Explorer, MS Movie Maker, etc.) that when we started moving from OS/2 we were told going to Windows was insane. That as soon as we came up with something good, Microsoft would just rip us off.  Their suggestion: Develop for Linux or MacOS. 

Microsoft gets an unfair rap though. Apple has done the same thing for a long time.  Sherlock eventually sucked up all the innovations in Watson to the point that Watson died. And those who don't excuse Apple for everything can point out countless smaller examples.

Suffice to say, all the OS vendors do it.  As a sweeping generalization I'll say it's a bad trend with a handful of exceptions.  The exceptions are when the OS vendor decides to keep improving it (Instant Messenger and Windows Media Player come to mind).  It's bad when the OS vendor implements it half-assed and kills the market (Channels, Active Desktop, WinForms, arguably Internet Explorer -- read this, disk compression, News Reader in Outlook Express). 

Internet Explorer circa 1999 (5 years ago)

When an OS vendor gets into the act and bundles something into the OS, they effectively kill a market. Non-developers will retort "Well, if you make something that's better then what's included then people will buy it." Nonsense. Most shareware authors make their living largely from low hanging fruit. Most developers lack the marketing ability to clearly explain the benefit of their non-free program versus the "free" version in the OS.   There are exceptions of course (WindowBlinds sales took off when Windows XP came out and continue to grow). But in general it kills them.  That's because most third party programs sell very very few copies. I.e. sales are measured in the two digit field per week. Take away the low hanging fruit and that developer is pushed over the edge and the app disappears.

But the pressure on OS vendors to tie into the OS is great.  Tying popular program concepts into the OS is a lot cheaper than coming up with new stuff. Apple advocates point to how "innovative" MacOS Tiger is.  Balderdash.  While Expose is definitely quite innovative, I haven't seen too much true innovation in MacOS since the original release of MacOS X 4 years ago.  By contrast, Microsoft really is trying to do some neat things with Longhorn.  Some of these things, like Avalon, have a rough equivalent in MacOS X (Quartz).  But you have to give Microsoft credit for at least focusing on core features rather than simply lifting ideas from popular shareware programs and throwing them in there.  Admittedly, however, other than peer file sharing, Microsoft is running out of popular third party programs to lend into the OS (top downloads at Download.com last week).

So what's your view on OS tying?

Also, here is an article that disagree with my views that I thought was pretty interesting:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/07/konfab_confab

This Fall we hope to start providing a great deal more options to users who want to purchase premium content.

Here are the top 5 sellers for June 2004:

Pinchecl's Cp27 visual style becomes the 3,000th WindowBlinds visual style on WinCustomize.com.

In the 5 years since WindowBlinds has been out, WindowBlinds has averaged around 600 visual styles annually with that number increasing over time.  That's an average of nearly 2 per day for 5 years!

Skinning continues to get more and more popular as users get more and more interested in changing the way Windows looks and feels.

And the future looks even brighter as future versions of Windows promise composited video, higher DPIs, vector drawing, and more!

Congratulations to all the WindowBlinds skinners who made this milestone possible!