Calgary entrepreneur liberates desktops

"One Computer, One Child" is the rallying cry for a generation of technology education observers.

But a Calgary entrepreneur would love to see a slight change in that slogan: "One Computer, 10 Workstations, 10 Children."

Tim Griffin, 36, is the very tall, very young-looking and very serious president of Userful Corp., a nine-year-old private technology company on the verge of a 10-fold increase in activity thanks to pending sales from far-flung corners of the world.  The Kingston, Ont., native, who first came West to earn his master's degree in industrial design at the University of Calgary, started his company in 1999 to "pay some bills" as a web page designer but, like many entrepreneurs before him, was inspired by frustration to invent the computer-multiplying product that took over the company.

"Every time we hired someone new, we had to set up a computer for him," recalled Griffin, sitting in his utilitarian office in a two-storey building overlooking 6th Avenue S.W. in downtown Calgary.

"So I was looking at the bill for the computer, which was about $1,000, and the 10 hours of lost productivity, which would be another $1,000, and thought, 'Gee, there has to be a better way.'

"So we figured, why can't we just plug in another keyboard and monitor -- because we weren't taxing the computer very much -- and why couldn't we just eliminate this whole need to manage and maintain computers?"

He followed Google's lead, designing a product that uses the Linux operating system and ordinary computers and monitors. It launched in 2002, with first sales the next year.

Since then, the number of staff has grown to about 30 people (with 10 in a sales and marketing office in Victoria), head office size has doubled once and is in the process of doubling again to about 10,000 square feet and, most recently, the company has renamed and relaunched its core product, adopting a colourful new logo.

Userful has grown to more than $1 million in annual sales (Griffin won't give an exact number) with 30,000 "computer seats" that pay monthly management fees of $10 to $100 per desktop per month to Userful or its partners.

The Userful Desktop system includes the operating system, 40 applications (in 30 languages) and security safeguards, installed with just one CD. An extra video card is required for each satellite monitor and keyboard.

The product includes the ability to customize any or all of the desktops.

Years of battling disbelief have made Griffin a little cynical. There were an estimated one billion personal computers in use in the world in 2007 and very few of the people who bought those machines stopped to consider a multi-workstation alternative, he said.

An early attempt to set up a pilot project with the Calgary Board of Education went nowhere, he recalled, because they were nervous about exposing their network to Linux.

"We have literally thousands of indirect competitors, people solving the same problem (affordable computing) in a different way," he said. "Our biggest competitor is the status quo."

There are a handful of direct competitors that also multiply desktops, but no one does that in conjunction with managing them, he said.

That's true, said Illinois-based Egil Juliussen, a technology analyst and former editor of the Computer Industry Almanac.

He wasn't familiar with Userful but said there has always been a niche market for similar products such as "thin client" systems that allow multiple desktops through add-on hardware

Juliussen said having several desktops connected to a central computing station is a throwback to the days of mainframe computers and terminals.

"Most people want their own PC to themselves, in terms of sharing stuff," he said, estimating only one or two per cent of the American market is served by multiple workstations.

"Anything that's really computer intensive or where you're downloading a lot of information from the Internet, because then you have multiple users going on the same link, would cause delays. Its drawback is its peak load requirements."

The remote web-based managing of the system touted by Userful, on the other hand, adds value for the company and big cost savings for the client, said Juliussen.

Griffin said there are solutions to operational problems -- a bigger bandwidth will take care of Internet download delays, for instance.

And, while there could be delays if several users are playing Flash-animated games at the same time, that can be partly countered by using dual-core PCs instead of single. Or by preventing employees or students from using their workstations for gaming.

Another aspect of Userful's system that's gaining traction is its environmental footprint. Fewer PCs mean fewer problems disposing of old machines and a lot less energy used to keep them running.

Sales have taken off since Userful implemented a plan to use resellers to market, install and service the product.

The company is making inroads in Brazil and South Africa and is looking at putting pay-per-use kiosks in gas stations in developing countries.

And despite Juliussen's mainframe comparison, Griffin sees bright prospects.

"The future that I see is there are going to be two types of computers in the world," said Griffin.

"There are going to be hand-held personal devices you carry with you, like a compact laptop or a PDA (personal digital assistant), and there are going to be managed access points to the Internet.

"Userful aims to be the one making those access points sustainable."

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