Niche product faces extinction?

Screen capture is a useful tool for someone like me. Much of my research time is spent on a laptop, capturing information and saving it for later use. On my previous Windows XP laptop, the built-in screen capture utility was cumbersome. A basic screen shot involved:

   1. Hitting "Prt Sc"
   2. Launch Paint (primitive on XP)
   3. Paste screen shot into Paint
   4. Save the file

But I realized that I was taking screen snapshots often and wanted to automate the process better. Ideas for improvement could have come from:

   1. Collecting my own feedback or
   2. Try another existing product to see if it improved the experience enough to warrant a justice

I knew that the entire screen capture experience could have been improved, but "how" was tough for me. It was annoying to:

    1. invoke Paint
    2. paste the screen shot into Paint
    3. save Paint


Snagit

A few of my coworkers used this 3rd party tool. It was a nifty tool that looked nice and seemed easy to use. "My co-workers use it. It looks nice. I will try it". After trying out Snagit, I liked it sufficient to buy it. With SnagIt, the steps to capture a screen was easy and almost "fun":


   1. Hit "Prt Sc"
   2. The SnagIt application will dim the entire screen
   3. A cross-hair will appear to allow the user to drag across a region to be captured
   4. The region captured will not be dimmed, so the users knows exactly what is being caputed
   5. Once captured, it is automatically stored in a SnagIt editor that stores all capture - so no need
        to invoke Paint/paste into Paint/save file in Paint


A Retail Distribution Surprise

Went to Fry's and they did not carry SnagIt. Techsmith does not distribute through Fry's although the Fry's sales manager said  that there is a strong demand for SnagIt. And there was not one single competing product. If you wanted a screen capture tool, Snagit was the best, and you can only buy it from Techsmith directly. The product was good enough that they did not need to pay Fry's to have it on their shelves.

Windows 7 and Challenge to Snagit

A couple of days ago, I upgraded to a new laptop outfitted with Windows 7. Exploring it a bit, I found a new built-in application called "Snipping Tool" that seems to have features very similar to SnagIt.

It is an improvement over the WindowsXP Prt Sc, but not much over SnagIt. But at $0, it will be hard for SnagIt to compete against Windows 7 Snipping Tool.

For Techsmith to continue selling SnagIt to new users on Windows7, they either have to innovate beyond what Windows7 offers, or maybe offer a Windows7 that is cheaper to entice them to buy SnagIt, a superior product over Prt Sc, but not as superior as it was over Windows XP.