{"id":38754,"date":"2023-10-20T14:58:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/aussie-software-startup-gets-a-boost-from-microsoft-surface-3-pre-installation-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:58:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:46","slug":"aussie-software-startup-gets-a-boost-from-microsoft-surface-3-pre-installation-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/aussie-software-startup-gets-a-boost-from-microsoft-surface-3-pre-installation-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie software startup gets a boost from Microsoft Surface 3 pre-installation &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/l_surface3-600.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_surface3-600\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Mobile annotation software startup and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startmate.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Startmate<\/a> graduate&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.drawboard.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drawboard<\/a> will see a huge jump in users after Microsoft announced its software will be pre-installed on&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.surface.com\/2015\/03\/announcing-surface-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">every Surface 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Alistair Michener, founder and chief executive officer of the Melbourne-based startup, says Microsoft\u2019s announcement gives the Drawboard team a lot of confidence that they\u2019re on the right track.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The startup\u2019s software Drawboard PDF has regularly featured in the top 10 apps of the Windows Store\u2019s paid category across the world over the past six to 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Michener, says Microsoft has given him no indication of how many Surface 3 units it believe it will sell, but he expects that number to be greater than 10 million. He won\u2019t disclose how many downloads Drawboard PDF has had to date, but says once Surface 3 launches, the number of people using its product will be far greater than its current figure.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be great to get that amount of eyeballs on our application. So obviously that dwarfs the number of users we currently have,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll have to think about changes&nbsp;in support methods and also how we react to feature requests. Obviously we\u2019ve got our own vision for Drawboard&nbsp;in the engineering and construction markets&nbsp;but there will be those out there in the masses that require something else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Michener says while the Windows App ecosystem is nowhere near as big as Android or iOS, he hopes it can close that gap over the next&nbsp;two to four years.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a strong believer in Windows 8, Windows 10 and the Surface line. That combo will do a lot of great things in the enterprise and education space. That\u2019s what really driven us forward,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve&nbsp;largely&nbsp;been bootstrapping for the last 12 months, but received a Commercialisation Australia grant in 2013 that let us get started.&nbsp;Fortunately,&nbsp;we stuck to our vision from the beginning and along the way&nbsp;we expanded our&nbsp;market&nbsp;for our first product&nbsp;and have been able to generate enough revenue to grow our team and started earning some profit.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe seem to have hit the sweet spot for a device like the Surface. So Microsoft is a really key partner. The announcement, which we\u2019ve known about for a little bit of time, is really validation for what we\u2019re doing, and has given us a lot of confidence we\u2019re doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i><br \/> Follow&nbsp;StartupSmart&nbsp;on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StartUpSmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Facebook<\/i><\/a><i>, <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/startupsmartnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Twitter<\/i><\/a><i>, and <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/startupsmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a><i>. <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com.au\/e\/startupsmart-awards-2015-tickets-15171663855\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Buy tickets to the 2015 StartupSmart Awards.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mobile annotation software startup and Startmate graduate&nbsp;Drawboard will see a huge jump in users after Microsoft announced its software will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}