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« Last post by hapishyguy on December 10, 2021, 05:41:06 AM »
THanks for your reply. I know its been over 2 years now on this topic.
I already have and using another company as whitelabel. I want to part away from them or in other words get a second company as a back up. The company I have is very good. Nothing wrong with them. The issue is the business model which I will explain later below. I have contacted many companies and negotiating with them and few are coming close to what I want.
Currently my model is monthly charge to customers as the whitelabel company I have charges me monthly per device. So if they charge me monthly eg. $2/month/device I charge my customers $10/month/device. This is an example. Most of the customers do not want a monthly fee. They want a one time charge or device. Eg. if one resaurant has to put 3 screens they have to pay $30/month. Restaurant owners do not want to pay any monthly, call it post corona tough times or they are being just cheap or they are using USB or they are seeing other options in the market who offer one time device and no monthly. Whatever the case is I am not going to discuss it. Everyone has a valid answer/opinion according to them.
Even if I sell a one time device with no monthly fee I expect the working life of the device to be 4-5 years. After that they will have to buy it again. So lets say (as above) my current whitelabel company offers me $2/month/screen the yearly cost of it would be $24/year. 4 years of working device would be 24(per year) x 4 = $96. Lets make it $100 as a round figure. That means that if I sell a device for one time price of $250 and I myself eat up the cost of $100 that my whitelable company is charging me, I am not at a good profit. Now remember that the $2/month/screen price is just an example. No company is offering this price. Which means that I can not make a profit at all even if I eat up the cost myself.
So far this reason I looked into any open source digital signage software which I can install on aws (amazon) and own it. This way I can offer a one time device for 250 to the customer and then give them access to a simple basic (or a good one if I can) digital signage CMS to the customer where the customer can go themselves and change the menus etc themselves. Runing cost of CMS on aws wont be too much. Even if its it would offset with the number of devices I would sell.
Now the issue here is again that there are not many open source digital signage softwares. Not sure if I can mention them here but I still will. They are concerto, xibo, pisignage. If anyone know any other let me know or pm me please. With pisignage you have to have a raspberry pi. If you assemble the kit for raspberry pi it costs around 140. So if 140 is my cost and I sell it at 250 it still not a big margin. Xibo charges for the android license yearly however cms is opensource. Therefore I am looking for some kind of opensource software that is compatible with android devices as I already use android devices and they are cheaper than raspberry pis or chromeboxes or window boxes.
With the above scenario none of the company supports android players or have apks. Correct me if I am wrong or any advice will be appreciated.
Now, come to DS. They a free version called studiolite. Its a good solution BUT in the free studiolite version they do not offer youtube plugin. Its a very useful plugin. If one needs to get that plugin they needs to but the enterprise version which is 299/month for unlimited screens. This is expensive as well but will talk about it later.
From here on I have few questions.
1. I checked on github that there is studiolite version. Is this studiolite version a complete solution OR just to handle the front end interface. I read a post somewhere on this forum that opensoruce version of DS on github is to handle the front end for enterprise customers only. Is it true?
Does it mean that I can not use opensource studiolite version on github to run a signage service for myself where customers can login and change the content themselves if I install it myself on aws (amazon).
2. If I buy the enterprise version for 299/month then do my customers have to download the studiopro onto their computers to change the content OR it will be done via online website?
To me studiolie is better than studiopro because customers do not have to download anything on the computer to change the content because either you login to studiolite on the website or studiopro on the computer the free account has the same limitations in the features and widgets (no youtube etc). So from a customers easability point of view studiolite version is better as it can be done from the website anywhere as with the studiopro on the computer to carry around.
So, if I get the enterprise edition then would customers get all the features and widgets on the DS website or they will still have to download the studiopro to get all the features and widgets.
Also, I would appreciate if I can get some discount on the enterprise account.
I am talking to another company and they are giving an awesome deal but their CMS is a bit confusing. Its free with a catch. I can live with that catch as long as it suits my business model BUT the problem with that company is that they do not have whitelable option. If I can get a good discount with DS for enterprise edition I can incline myself to them as they have whitelabel option.
Thanks for reading!
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