How many network administration tools born in the 90’s are still innovative today?
VNCscan is one of them!
VNCscan Turns 13 Years Old
My name is Steve Bostedor and I started writing the first version of VNCScan with Philippe Green way back in April of 1999. As with most of the features in today’s Swiss army knife of a tool, VNC Scan was originally intended to help me manage my own network.
Phil and I put up our first website and public release of version 1.2 in July of 1999. (link credits of archive.org). Phil and I released a few more free versions under TGCS (Two Guys and a Compiler Software).
I released the first versions as freeware because I was very frustrated with other software companies charging too much money for their tools. Their per-computer and per-install license models were pricing their software out of the hands of the network administrators who could use them the most. I wanted everyone to be able to use a great tool like VNCscan no matter how small their budget was.
A Rapid Growing User Base
By version 3.0, VNCScan development became a full time job just to keep up with all of the feature requests. With the financial burdens and the time that it took me away from my family, I had no choice to release a paid version of the program.
Other similar programs were charging in excess of $10,000 USD to manage networks of only a few hundred PC’s and servers. I came to a compromise that I would charge only enough to keep the company profitable and not a penny more. From this philosophy, the per-admin license model was born. To my knowledge, VNCscan was the first software in the world to be licensed under that model.
Under the Per-Admin model, you can run as many copies of the program as you need and manage as many PC’s and servers as you have for only one small license fee for each administrator using the program. That fee is only $59 today and has been that price for almost a decade.
A Company Of Firsts
The consumer centric Per-Admin license model was just one of the many areas in which VNCScan pioneered and changed the industry forever. We were the first VNC Manager, and the first one to have a multi-threaded scanning engine. VNCscan hosted the first integrated VNC deployment tool and pushed the bar higher and higher as copycat software began to follow our lead.
In order to help fight spyware on remote computers, VNCScan became the first tool in the world to remotely reboot a computer into safe mode and then control the desktop remotely. I wasn’t sure if anyone other than me thought that was a cool idea until I saw it snatched up as a bragged about feature in our competitors release notes months later.
VNCScan has celebrated a lot of industry “firsts” over the years including the ability to remotely enable RDP, execute powershell, Kix, and VBS scripts remotely, and much more. This trend continues today.
An Organic Cycle
I have worked in the IT field for almost two decades. Many of the time saving features found in VNCScan such as the ability to test the speed of your LAN between you and a remote computer were born out of my own necessity. Other great features were included as user submitted ideas.
VNCScan is such a progressive and feature rich product because it is grown organically from the field in which it is consumed. Network Administrators from all over the globe rely upon the software daily and are gracious enough to contribute suggestions and bug reports religiously. This helps the program grow stronger and become even more indispensible to those of you in the field.
Thank you!
We may be the code monkeys behind the monitors but you are the reason for our success. Every interaction with someone from our user base is a breath of fresh air. I am humbled at the great feedback that the product receives in your blogs and social network postings. I truly feel unworthy of such an honor but am eternally thankful.
From my family to yours … Thank You!
Steve Bostedor
Bozteck Founder and CTO