MacDirectory 151 MacDirectory 151
PROFILE
eSELLERATE > SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS FOR THE WORLD
OF E-COMMERCE
eSellerate is an industry-
leading software commerce provider. It
provides the e-commerce tools and
solutions for software publishers to sell
more of their products.
MacDirectory had the opportunity to
speak with three key individuals, Brant
Pallazza, Vice President of Global Direct
at Digital River, which now owns
eSellerate; Patrick Smith, Vice President
and Platform General Manager for
eSellerate; and Gerri Dyrek, director of
Public Relations for Digital River.
eSellerate provides the software publisher
with multiple sales solutions and the tools
to upload content in real-time, set prices,
create promotional coupons and offers
and customize the look and feel of the
order forms.
MacDirectory > Patrick, can you tell us a
little about the beginning of eSellerate?
Patrick Smith > The company was formed
by MindVision Software in 1987 with the
focus of putting out Mac-based products
and tools. Some of the products that we
were best known for were Speed
Doubler, RAM Doubler, Stacker - those
were in the late '80s and early '90s, all
focused around compression technology.
That compression technique moved in to
a product called Installer Vise. Installer
Vise is a software installer for the
Macintosh. As we put our products into
the Mac community focused on the
delivery of software generally around the
installation process, we moved into the
notion to extend that software delivery
expertise into the world of electronic
commerce. eSellerate was born and made
its introduction into the Mac community
at WWBC in 2000.
MD > And the key people in the founding
of eSellerate?
PS > There was a core group of us that
founded the company and the majority of
those folks continue today. eSellerate was
later acquired by Digital River.
MD > Who is the key man in eSellerate?
Brandt Pallazza > I believe I can answer
that for you. Every one of the platforms
that Digital River has acquired has a
general manager and that's Patrick's role
at eSellerate. He is very much like a
general manager. He is responsible for the
staff, for the platform, the positioning of
the platform, new customer acquisition,
everything even down to the maintenance
of the building. So Patrick literally acts as
the general manager of the company.
MD > Is it correct that eSellerate is a
spinoff of MindVision?
PS > Let me try to clarify that a little bit.
MindVision is really just the legal name of
the company and historically it's basically
two main business units and two main
brands - one being the Installer Vise
brand and product and the second being
eSellerate. So there are really two
separate business units of MindVision the
legal entity.
MD > Where does Digital River come in?
BP > Digital River, much like eSellerate, is
an e-commerce company. We have
several e-commerce platforms: we have
an analytics company we acquired years
ago and we have an email company we
acquired, so we are a e-commerce
platform with a compilation of a lot of
other businesses that support that e-
commerce entity.
Digital River recognized about two years
ago that eSellerate was a leader and
MindVision was a leader in the Mac
software developer stage. Digital River
had some expertise in Mac but our focus
was on global worldwide commerce not
necessarily focusing on the operating
system. So when we saw how strong
MindVision and eSellerate were in the
Mac space we decided to proceed with
the acquisition of MindVision so that
we could further our expertise in the
Mac environment.
eSellerate still operates as a unique e-
commerce platform owned by Digital
River but we share the same infrastructure
- we share the same back office, customer
service, fraud management, the IT
infrastructure, but eSellerate operates
entirely independent in targeting the Mac
community of software developers and
developing tools and features to grow
their revenue.
MD > Patrick, what is the primary goal
of eSellerate?
PS > The primary goal of eSellerate is to
provide leading world quality e-commerce
and license management tools for the
Mac development community throughout
the world.
WORDS BY E. LEE GRIGGS
