

Ask HN: How should I sell my HTML5 X11/remote desktop app? - riskable

I&#x27;m nearing beta-quality in my X11 app for Gate One (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;liftoff&#x2F;GateOne).  It is fast&#x2F;efficient enough that you could open VLC in your browser and play back a video (proof: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;6zJ8TNcWTyo).  Just like terminals you&#x27;ll be able to embed it into your own site&#x2F;app and open&#x2F;host X11 applications (e.g. LibreOffice, RDP&#x2F;VNC clients, web browsers, etc etc).<p>Right now Gate One (and its Terminal app) are open source (AGPLv3) with a commercial license available.  It&#x27;s not making much money with that business model--despite hundreds of thousands of devices shipped with Gate One and several SaaS platforms using it.  So I&#x27;ve come to HN to ask for advice:  How should I license the X11 app?<p>Something like a free trial with reminders that you need to pay (like Sublime Text 2)?  If I do that how much should I charge?  How do I differentiate the pricing for businesses that just want to show off their application on their website from businesses that want to use it as a replacement for Citrix?<p>I have my own ideas for all these things but I want to see what the HN community thinks.
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vitovito
You seem to have a nice infrastructure setup that could compete with the
various alternative solutions (VMware ThinApp, etc.), but you'll never sell
enterprise infrastructure without an enterprise sales team.

Instead, offer turn-key application hosting, both public and private. XP is
hitting EOL in April, lots of companies have specific, ancient apps that they
need to maintain, so fire up WINE or CodeWeavers CrossOver along with
BoxedApp/Cameyo/AppArmor for sandboxing, and provide turn-key Win32 streamed
application hosting by subscription, on a company's existing EC2 account, or
as VM images.

Then, repeat that for niche apps in multiple markets. There was a YC startup
that pivoted to provide streaming of mobile app demos. That's a great niche.
That could be you. But providing desktop application demos is a completely
different market from mobile app demos from Citrix replacement. You should
have a different marketing strategy, different copy, different presentation,
and different pricing for each of them, all quietly using the same
infrastructure behind the scenes.

No audio support?

