On the ball for you for over 25 years
For more than 25 years i.e. since the company was founded, I have led the destiny of Archivista GmbH. During this time we have been able to take care of thousands of installations and it has always provided us with great joy if our customers have been able to unostentatiously and efficiently work to their complete satisfaction.
We are often asked why our product is not considerably more expensive. Or to put it more negatively – we are asked if we can actually survive with such low prices? Ignoring for the moment the fact that we have indeed survived for the last 25 years without a problem, I would like to take this opportunity to mention how we can offer such a product at such a price.
Over fifteen years ago we made a promise that we would retain the data formats for our products and leave them unchanged. We think of this as being a given if documents are to remain accessible for a least 25 years with our products. There are advantages for both you and us in the fact that we have longer-term plans and actions with regard to our product development than is the case with comparable products. And ultimately we can thus keep the development costs down to a reasonable level, which is why we can provide such a beneficial price / performance ratio.
With regard to data integrity, we continue with a substantial promise – we guarantee you 30 years of integrity for the data structure used by us when you acquire an ArchivistaBox today, in the same way as we publish the complete source (program) code. Which leads us nicely to the second “objection” that we often hear: “from what do you live if everything is open source?”
I’m happy to refer to the fact here that, irrespective of if a product is open source or not, you as a customer are interested in a product that runs as part of your daily operations and is preferably as maintenance-free as possible. Which is why we decided to go with open source more than five years ago – today we can provide you with a stable product, which would most probably not have been possible without open source. And in contrast to the earlier days, we are now in the good company of many small and large businesses.
The current trend is small and efficient computers that require little energy but still provide the whole spectrum of Office applications, just as it has now become a habit to work with web-based applications. You will find both of these aspects realised in our products, and this has been the case for many years.
Today we supply the ArchivistaBox with more comprehensive conditions than was the case in 1998 without hardware
And because we did our “homework” quicker than other providers, after 10 years we can offer a product that provides greater performance than ever at a reduced cost. An example of this: in 1998 our software Archivista (4 users) was priced at approximately 2000 Euros.
For this price you would today receive the ArchivistaBox-Säntis together with hardware. And as the solution works in a web-based manner, it can be provided ready-to-use (i.e. no installation required). The backup, the creation of long-term copies and the virtual printing (to name just a few examples) are all available at the press of a button. In addition we have over 25 years of experience to fall back on – which you also benefit from, now and in the future. I therefore really look forward to the next 25 years together with you.
Urs Pfister, CEO Archivista GmbH
