If necessity is the mother of invention, Ric Richardson likes to joke, his native Australia must be the motherland.
“When you’re at the edge of the world, you need a lot of home-grown innovation or you do without,” says the husky, talkative 38-year-old, recounting his home country’s history of practical innovations, which include flip-flop sandals, lawn mowers and intermittent windshield wipers.
Richardson hopes to add his own twist to that legacy through his Huntington Beach company, Uniloc Corp., which has patented a system that allows software makers to create try-before-you-buy versions of their work. When users purchase the software, they get a registration code that unlocks a fully functional version of the software.
The company, which snagged $1.7 million from an angel investor in February, is looking for a $5 million to $10 million round of venture capital in the next few months. The company employs about 30 people, a number Richardson expects to triple in the next 12 months or so.
Richardson said he got the idea for Uniloc during his former career as sound equipment and synthesizer programmer for acts ranging from INXS to John Denver, a job that required him to use pricey software used in the industry.
“A lot of musicians are poor, and the software is expensive,” he said, explaining the difficulty in evaluating software without buying it first.
With money generated from an earlier invention,Richardson and his brother take credit for the popular and “ridiculously simple” Shade Saver cords used to keep sunglasses attached to their owners’ necks,he hired a few programmers to put the system together.
Apple Computer Inc. signed up as his first customer to create demonstration version of its ClarisWorks software. A few years later IBM Corp. used the system for its CD Showcase project.
The system is set to makes its public debut in next month’s Family PC magazine with a CD full of video games that will allow users to play for a certain number of weeks before requiring a purchase.
The try-before-you-buy concept isn’t new; most software developers now offer demonstration versions of their most popular titles. But those usually require programmers to create special stripped-down versions.
Uniloc’s system fits around full versions of software in a way that requires no major modifications, making the software function exactly like ordinary versions of the software, at least for a limited time.
Conventional Retailers Welcome
And unlike competing systems, Richardson plans to include, rather than replace, conventional retailers. Software packaged through Uniloc offers purchases through resellers who sign on, and participants are expected to send a physical version of the software along with user manuals and other documentation to customers.
While the concept might seem a step backward from the idea of direct Internet sales, Richardson said he’s confident including the usual retail elements. That will speed the technology’s adoption and allow the company to take on a role similar to that of credit card companies: verifying transactions and taking a cut of the sale, leaving everything else to the buyer and seller.
“Ninety-nine percent of the credit card business is the network behind the card, not selling the plastic,” Richardson says. “What we’re doing is building partners to create a digital distribution network. We’re not trying to force change on the industry. We’re offering convenience and a marketing tool.”
He expects the company to generate $6 million in sales this year, $50 million next year and as much as a $100 million in 2002.
Richardson won’t unmask the details about how the software generates a registration code that can’t be copied and instantly disseminated over the Internet. But he did say that unique imperfections in every computer make it easy to create a system that permanently ties the program to a particular machine. And users who want to install the software on a new computer would simply use the regular version shipped by the retailer.
Skeptics Remain
Convincing software developers that the system is safe from piracy could be difficult. Microsoft Corp. tried a similar scheme a few years ago by giving away time-limited versions of its Office 97 package, only to see the locking code broken and promulgated over the Internet within days.
And id Software Inc. tried the same thing with its “Quake II” game, watching in dismay as hackers quickly wrote software that unlocked the full version of the game for free.
Still, Richardson said his company’s taking a “roadrunner-coyote” approach, staying one step ahead of hackers by regularly altering the encoding technique, will suffice.
And Richardson doesn’t want to stop with software. He’s working on a version of the system that can store music and videos the same way, allowing people to listen to music or watch movie clips before purchasing the product.
Given away at movie theaters, the trial discs could hold soundtracks to a film customers have just seen or video games related to the title.
“These things cost 40 cents to produce,” he said. “You should never have to walk out of an entertainment center without a CD or DVD in your hand.” n
