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Software firm's give-away strategy: 'Try it, You'll like it'

By Cara Branigan, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

July 26, 2001

The Michigan-based software company cheerfully acknowledges it:
Giving away a computer program that reads text out loud to help visually
impaired or literacy-challenged students is a blatant marketing gimmick. "At
this point, we've given Scan and Read away to more than 4,000 schools and
libraries," said Steve Timmer, president of Premier Programming Solutions.

The company is offering every school a free single-user license for its Scan
and Read software package, so a student who needs it can have the
opportunity
to use this technology. "Our competitors sell the software starting at
$1,000, and that's ridiculous," declared Kenneth Springer, chief operating
officer of Premier Programming Solutions. "Schools are on a tight budget"

"We're a very small company, and we don't do much marketing," Springer
added. "Our products don't cost very much, so our budget is small. But we
don't want to sell it for $1,000." Premier Programming Solutions, which has
only three employees, said the company expects to get subsequent sales from
customers who first try out the software in schools, libraries, literacy
groups, and other non-profit settings. "It's inexpensive enough that if a
child has been using it at school, then a parent can afford to buy it for at
home, too," Timmer said. "Sure it's a marketing scheme, but it's easier to
show people how it works than it is to explain it." Timmer, a software
developer and former nuclear engineer, developed the Scan and Read system in
his basement after losing most of his vision to macular degeneration in
1996.

He needed something to assist him in reading, but found the products on the
market too expensive and complicated. "When I first lost my vision, I
quickly
became frustrated with the price and complexity of other text-to-voice
conversion programs," he said. "Some people can pay $1,000 but most people
can't." Scan and Read, which is available to the public for $89.95,
translates written text into spoken language. It will read any type of
printed material including computer files, eBooks, books, magazines, and
forms. "You can pull up any existing text file or scan in any text-like a
book or newspaper-and it'll read it to you," Springer said. It works with
any Windows-based PC and any standard flatbed scanner. Users must turn the
text into a digital format by scanning the text. The software highlights
each
word on the screen as it reads the text aloud. "You can read a letter or
line
at a time, so it helps students follow along," Springer said. It also lets
users control how fast the computer reads, and it can read in 17 different
voices, according to company literature. Dianne Yarnell, technology
coordinator at the Arkansas Adult Learning Resource Center, which operates
53
adult literacy centers in the state, was delighted to get the Scan and Read
software for free. "I'm a scrounger so the first thing I did when I heard
about Scan and Read was to call for a free copy," Yarnell said. "This is one
of those programs that if it wasn't offered for free I would have scraped
together the money to buy it." Although Yarnell didn't compare any competing
products, she liked the Scan and Read program on the first glance. "When I
first loaded it and looked at it, I watched to see if I had to do any
training with our teachers, and I didn't have to do anything," Yarnell said.

"It's that easy to use." Because students in adult literacy programs often
don't have computer skills, the opportunity to use software to learn to read
is a real bonus, said Yarnell. "To me the computer is a basic tool. Using
this software kind of kills two birds with one stone. [Users are] learning
to
use the mouse and computer, and they're learning to read," Yarnell said.
Some
competitors, such as Kurzweil, part of the Lernout & Hauspie group, sell
text-to-speech programs that are more robust and more expensive than Scan
and
Read. Kurzweil offers the three different scanning and reading products, the
company said: The Kurzweil 3000 for $1,895 assists those with learning
disabilities, the MagniReader at $349 is for people with impaired vision,
and
the Kurzweil 1000 for $995 is for the blind. Unlike Scan and Read, the
Kurzweill 1000 can read text in 170 languages and switch between different
languages instantly. "There's always a market that wants something for free,
but those aren't the customers who buy Kurzweil," said David Bradburn,
director of product management at Kurzweil. "We'd like to give our product
away too, but we're a for-profit company." According to one market analyst,
newer companies with cheaper, smaller products often threaten
more-established products like the Kurzweil line, but not always. "Something
that happens with mature companies is that they don't want to compete on
price but on features," said Peter Stokes, executive vice president at
Eduventures.com. Then, a new company comes along and offers a cheaper,
lighter version of the product and often kills the giant company. So will
this marketing ploy help Premier Programming Solutions gain market share?

"Unless the product serves a real need of the institution, [giving it away
for free] is not going to get the marketing bang their expecting," Stokes
said. "The critical challenge for that strategy to succeed is moving beyond
schools saying 'Yes, they'll take it,' to schools using it effectively." The
worst possibility, according to Stokes: Potential customers would take the
software because it's free, but then never used it. "Giving stuff away free
to teachers does not necessarily result in sales or translate into paying
customers," Stokes said. "It's definitely a difficult row to hoe" To obtain
Scan and Read, call the company at (517) 668-8188 or visit its web site to
apply for a free copy or to download a demonstration copy. Links:



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