Film and Technology

Nalpeiron Case Studies

The Case Studies make informative reading, showing how in the real world anything from large operational hurdles to idiosyncrasies which come under the banner of 'ideal needs and wants' have been solved for customers who have switched to the Nalpeiron Software Licensing Service.

 

Read how they switched and what they've achieved.

 

Nalpeiron: A Business with “Character and Integrity”

Background

 

MediaShout is a tech enterprise business providing presentation software to churches around the world.  The company formed in the 1990’s when the founders saw the need for a media tool to run live worship presentations. Churches had outgrown hymnals and overhead projectors but the technology to have sophisticated media was prohibitively expensive.  Along came MediaShout with a solution that allowed even an inexperienced volunteer to control lyrics, announcements, sermon commentary, and sound - and the worship experience was revolutionized. They wrote their first software in March 2000, and the company coined the term Worship Presentation Software that quickly became popular with younger pastors.

 

The software includes a database of song lyrics and bibles.  Users can display these dynamically, as well as use images and video.  MediaShout is available on both Macintosh and Windows and is designed for use by volunteers as well as employees in a constantly changing staffing environment.

 

The Challenge

 

When MediaShout launched their product in 2000, they had an instant success on their hands; the need was so great. CEO Eric Eitel explains: “The program became so successful that we couldn’t produce it fast enough. Twelve years later, we are selling our fourth major release and tens of thousands of churches are using MediaShout to add another dimension to their worship.”

It is no surprise that a startup experiencing such a high level of success was focused on the creative aspects of their software design and the challenges of delivering product to their new customers.

 

As with many startups, security was hardly a priority concern. 

 

As CEO Eric Eitel remembers, “Our business was all about innovation in software design.  We didn’t want to take a product already existing in the entertainment industry to use for worship software; we wanted to create something that would really suit our customers’ needs.  We probably thought that writing security code was all just part of that creative process.”

For several years, MediaShout rapidly grew its business, and there were no problems.  But then the day came when the combination of success and global recognition began to have a darker side.

 

 “Until 2008 our licensing was in house.  But then we started getting calls from customers around the world sharing the same license number and we finally discovered we hadn’t protected our software. Suddenly, security became our Number 1 concern.”

As is often the case, the increasing growth of a business leads to being noticed by more and more customers that are exactly the market we wish to reach, but also by individuals wanting to make money through piracy. 

 

Why Nalpeiron?

 

CEO Eric Eitel continues: “We took three to five months to research and put in real due diligence to select the right licensing. We chose Nalpeiron because we felt the company provided the highest licensing security compared to its competitors, which addressed our primary concern; and they had the same character and integrity and corporate philosophy as us.

 

Given our passionate and committed clientele, that was something we valued highly.” But the benefits of moving licensing to Nalpeiron went beyond simply taking care of the piracy element. The nature of the MediaShout marketplace requires being particularly aware that a large portion of end-users are volunteers and that there is a large amount of changeover. The Nalpeiron licensing structure has allowed the business much greater flexibility with its licensing so that churches can more easily move licenses around between computers, providing customers with a higher level of service.

 

In Q3 2013, MediaShout released a new version of their software, upgrading the user experience dramatically. Given their positive experience with Nalpeiron Licensing, they are now considering using Nalpeiron Software Analytics to discover the power of data to learn about their customers and how MediaShout’s many features are actually being used, so they can continue to develop products that meet market demand and bring in revenue.

 

Conclusion

 

For MediaShout, the benefits of the Nalpeiron Licensing Service include peace of mind regarding security, increased income through new licensing options, and great technical support, and for their end-users, they include more options regarding licenses and pricing.  In other words, Nalpeiron has benefited both MediaShout as well as MediaShout’s end-users.

 

In addition, “Nalpeiron customer support is quick, helpful and knowledgeable.  But things have been working so well that we haven’t had to talk to Customer Support in almost a year,” says MediaShout CEO, Eric Eitel.  “Now that we’ve been with Nalpeiron Licensing Service for a few years, we are extremely glad to have reliable activation and stay in control of licensing security.”