Directadmin - Falling behind?

floyd said:
What is a mail control panel?
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I'm guessing he means either full control for the email user, or an email-only skin; while I'd love to see both, I know the former is close to impossible.

Jeff
 
What Customers think...

(Jeff, Marketing help? How about a line with people with their CC in hand waiting to sign up?)

Most people on this forum are very well versed in hosting, and control panels, BUT the key here is the customer, I have a licence for 3 other Control panels, and I bought yet another for DA, This came from taking some local business owners I am friends with and having them perform tasks, They ALL prefered DA over the others. Also, in the course of a year, how long do they spend in DA anyway?
The looks are easy, the function and support are second to none! That said, a cool new look would be great!
 
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using this example...

Using this example, switching from DA to another panel would be like trading in an older Mercedes for a brand new Yugo! It looks and smells new, But it will never be as reliable as the old reliable Mercedes!
 
cyberneticos said:
Exactly what he said: A fresh look
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Evidently you've never taken a course in marketing; marketing has nothing to do with whether or not the model is new.

Sure you can use the buzz around a new model to market around, but you still need to market, and to know how to market what you've got.

And oh, marketing has precious little to do with sales, as well.
Every heard of new car models ? What sells more,. new car models or old car models ?
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That honestly depends. For example, see how well Ford marketed the fresh new Edsel.
Business 101
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It's not that simple. Marketing never is.

Jeff
 
jlasman said:
Evidently you've never taken a course in marketing; marketing has nothing to do with whether or not the model is new.
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I've never needed a marketing course. I've gained experience marketing our company in real life, which is what any kind of course is for. To learn.

Publicising a new skin, a new look, or a new whatever IS a marketing strategy WE use. Now if in your case having a new skin is not part of your marketing plans, then,. hey,, that's YOUR business or marketing strategy.

jlasman said:
Sure you can use the buzz around a new model to market around, but you still need to market, and to know how to market what you've got.
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Yep, no one here never said you couldn't :rolleyes:

jlasman said:
And oh, marketing has precious little to do with sales, as well.
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I completely dissagree. But coming from you it doesn't really suprise me. Looking at your site, seems like looks is not as important to you. And that's totally respectable. Again, that's how you want to run your own show. In my case, if I had a site like yours we'd have considerably lower sales. That's why , part of my MARKETING strategy is to have my site the way it is. As a matter of fact, with every new look we've had, we've experience increases in sales.

Again, everyone has thier own marketing strategies. And what some of us are saying here is that being able to say "New control panel skin" is a marketing strategy, whether you agree with it , like it, use it or not. And thank god Directadmin also agrees with this.

jlasman said:
It's not that simple. Marketing never is.
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And , uhmm.. who said it was ? :rolleyes:
 
cyberneticos said:
I've never needed a marketing course. I've gained experience marketing our company in real life, which is what any kind of course is for. To learn.
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And I've learned a lot from taking one specific marketing course. But that's just me. The course (which cost a few hundred dollars) was well worth it to me but might have been totally worthless to you.
Publicising a new skin, a new look, or a new whatever IS a marketing strategy WE use. Now if in your case having a new skin is not part of your marketing plans, then,. hey,, that's YOUR business or marketing strategy.
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My marketing strategy, as taught in the course, boils down to one specific point: to the end user, benefits are more important than features.
I completely dissagree. But coming from you it doesn't really suprise me. Looking at your site, seems like looks is not as important to you.
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I've never claimed to be a site designer. And yes, my site needs a lot of work.

However, my site isn't where I do my marketing. This forum is.
That's why , part of my MARKETING strategy is to have my site the way it is. As a matter of fact, with every new look we've had, we've experience increases in sales.
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Absolutely.

But I disagree that changing the look and feel of the control panel helps keep those clients; in my opinion, it risks losing them.

That said, I'm one of the people here who likes that new ajax-based skin that's being discussed on these forums now.

As long as DirectAdmin doesn't eliminate old skins, I'm very happy to see them work on new ones. Some of my clients are still using the original skin and though we make all skins available to them, I'm not willing to risk losing them by telling them they need to upgrade.

Jeff
 
We're talking about bringing in a newer, more modern looking skin for new clients who compare DA to other panels (for those who haven't used it yet, for those who don't know how great DA is) so DA can have a more powerfull look that can battle up against other panels, not to keep current customers (although, if the panel is good enough, it could also keep customers from switching,...)

Jeff, hehehe,.., I thought you were going to take the comment I made on your site personally :) Glad you didn't. Shows what a great debater and real person you are :p
 
Just to add my $0.02 to this and it's been hinted at before - DA isn't here to hold your hand. On the surface, and this is completely a generalization and obviously not 100%, DA resellers tend to be more technically inclined than your typical cPanel/Plesk admin. A good chunk of users who purchased DA licenses don't need the panel to run the underlying OS.

To me, that is one of the greatest strengths of DA is that it doesn't do the EasyApache mess that is cPanel. If I want to run Apache 2.2.11 with my own set of included modules, I can. And when Apache upgrades to 2.2.12 or 2.3.1 in the future, I can upgrade day 1 if I am so inclined. Same goes with PHP 5.3.1 or MySQL 5.6.1, etc etc etc. Meanwhile, since my control panel isn't married to the underlying components, it doesn't share the same security vulnerabilities that they do. Go to SecurityFocus.com and do a search for cPanel and then do another for DirectAdmin. 9 pages versus 1.

I'm not disagreeing that some of the extras that you find in a Plesk or cPanel aren't nice for the end-users but they aren't always about web hosting and often times come with their own set of baggage (resource usage, security vulnerabilities, etc). I personally could care less about the minimalist design of the DA default GUI. I don't need pretty icons and flashy HTML to help me run a server or websites but I can certainly understand why people would want that, but it's far from a requirement.

My only major beef with DA is the lack of option on the mail end (Exim vs PostFix, Dovecot vs Courier) and how a simple ./build php or ./build apache literally breaks most customizations to particular config files. I know of the warnings on the config files but as discussed in the Apache forum, some things won't work in the /custom folder when it comes to httpd.conf or the various includes. A flag or setting to not replace config files would be ideal.

Some items like being more flexible with IP addresses (shared between resellers AND still giving those resellers their own unique IP) and a bit more straightforward SSL section (I do everything via CLI anyways so it's a moot point) would be nice. But most of the things I personally see that could improve are minor in nature. At the end of the day, I'm not a fan of cPanel and Plesk because they try to do too much and the effect on the control of your server is actually a negative.

Nothing is perfect, you can't please everyone but DA has done a good job of giving the base functionality that you need without putting a strain on the underlying server and it doesn't limit what you can run/install on the server.
 
I agree with CiscoMike! I actually like the simplicity of the Enhanced Skin, the other skin is ugly and the help pages need to be modified to also include the enhanced skin. When I, or a newbie, look at cPanel, it's cluttered and has way too many options that most people never use. Plus it takes more clicks to get things done than in DA. WHM is awful altogether. I, too, like the fact that DA and they underlying system are not so tightly intertwined. It allows for you to build the server you want, not the one the panel wants. cPanel is too strict in this fashion. It integrates with everything, controls everything, and because of this, is a resouce hog. If something breaks on cPanel, everything breaks. It's not necessarily the same on DA. I'm always scared of any sys admin that they prefer the simplicity of cPanel/WHM. It tells me that they may not know how to administer the system if it weren't for cpanel's interface. That's scary.
 
hmmm i've overlooking this discussion for a while now and let me begin with.....(don't take it personally)
What the heck are you guys thinking!!!!....

Who cares what me and you guys think about the skin and functionality. We could discuss for years about what we want but does that even matter? If I'm thinking right we're not to thoose anything but our clients are.

You don't like the layout? Who cares. If your clients like it then you better deal with it since I'm sure what your clients want is more important.

You don't like how directadmin deals with functionality? Who cares (read above)

If we want directadmin get more accepted than Cpanel you better start asking what your clients would like since they base their choice of host on it.

Lets face it. Cpanel lacks a lot but if you put exact the same hosts next to eachother with DA and CP with the same prices you know what they are going to choose.

Most of the times its only based on the difference between the skin of CP and DA.

This is how it is.
 
rjd22 said:
Lets face it. Cpanel lacks a lot but if you put exact the same hosts next to eachother with DA and CP with the same prices you know what they are going to choose.
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I do not think for a minute that customers choose cpanel over DA. I think customers choose cpanel because they do not even know that DA exists.

I also think that if customers had never used either one before and they were given a chance to use one for one month and the other for another month they would end up choosing DA because of its simplicity.

I do have to explain to customers time and again how to do something in DA that they had been used to doing in cpanel. And you know what their reaction is when I'm done? They cannot believe how simple it is to do in DA. They were expecting to have to do it the cpanel way which in their words is more complicated.

The above is not my opinion. Its the opinion of real customers.

But all of that being said, it doesn't hurt to have a variety of skins for customers to choose from. I have nothing against extra skins being created. But I do not think DA is falling behind. 99% of customers can do anything they want with DA. Its only the rare 1% that has some weird thing they want to do that DA cannot do. And most of the time cpanel won't do it either.

But if you really think the cpanel skin is that much better and is causing you to lose customers then nothing prevent someone from creating a cpanel clone skin.
 
Before I chose DA...

Before I chose DA I had some friends that owned computers but yet had NO knowledge of how to use them test it first!
They were amazed they could do the task I asked them to do.
Years later, I am made comfortable with my decision when a client calls and asks something like how do I do ???
I get to step 2 of about 5 or so steps and they cut me off saying " ok, I just figured it out" thanks for your help!
It is rare I get to the last step...
Thats simple!
 
I think what would solve a lot of fears people are having is to give users the ability to choose the skin they want. I know this has been suggested in the past and I know how it'll be a bit of an annoyance converting it over and making the new system, but it would be very beneficial in my mind. I can make a plugin to do it, but I personally think it should be an official feature by now.
 
Hello folks,

We are steering away from the purpose of this thread. What we are talking about here is when a prospect, that has never used or heard of DA, has to make a decisión to go with company X with Plesk or company Y with Directadmin or company Z with Cpanel.

We are talking about NEW clients, and about how they might percieve Directadmin (Enhanced skin). Since this NEW client will have to make a decisión primarily based on first impression, and in some cases recomendations, I feel that we do not standup to other panels with our Enhanced skin, and it could FOOL someone into thinking DA is inferior (which we all know it's not)

First impression, for NEW prospects, is what this thread is about.

Just wanted to bring everyone back on the subject :)
 
Fair enough, perhaps we have gotten off track but a minimalist skin != missing functionality. The thread title makes it sound like DA is missing some sort of function or feature where it's not. If the concern is "DA's default skin is dull and boring and my customers hate it because shades of blue are boring them to death", that's one thing. That's not missing functionality, that's a "pretty" option.
 
It seems that some cannot accept that many NEW customers actually like the enhanced skin.

Some new customers are going to like the old enhanced skin and some will want something new. Give them a choice (once the new one is done). Skins are assigned on a per user basis.

I don't know why this argument about skins keeps going. Show off all the possible skins on your sales page. Give the customers the choice. Its not that big of a deal. In fact that would be a great pitch, choose your own skin.
 
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