Today the world celebrates Ada Lovelace Day (ALD), an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Ada Lovelace is often referred to as the worlds’ first programmer, as she wrote a series of instructions for Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical computer that would calculate Bernoulli numbers back in 1843.

The fact that the inventor happened to be a woman doesn’t necessarily make me feel prouder that I’m a woman, but I admit it’s a an argument I would probably bring on the table in a gender debate. On the other hand, I do find ALD to be a great opportunity to think about other wonderful women that I follow, admire and respect in the worlds of online marketing & software business.

I am happy to announce a great update @Avangate: we’ve just launched network cross-selling that allows Avangate software vendors to sell each other’s products, to increase revenues and gain access to extra niches and new or larger markets.

In just a few words, network cross-selling means that all software publishers part of the Avangate network can offer other vendors’ products as cross selling options in their very own shopping cart and get a commission for the sale.

Here’s how a shopping cart would look like:

Hammers Sell Better Than Software

Back in April my friend and fellow microISV Andy Brice conducted a software vendor survey that highlighted something that doesn’t get the attention it should: while about a third of the people that visit your site download your trial version, only 1% end up buying.

Why is that? Now maybe the 92 respondents to the survey were atypical, but I don’t think so: I’ve heard that “only 1% buy” adage for years.

Here’s a related factoid Andy’s survey unearthed: the average Mac product conversion ratio is more than 4 times higher than the Windows product conversion ratio.

Now maybe Mac owners are four times richer than Windows users, or maybe because there’s four times less software to choose from. But as a Windows developer who switched two years ago, I haven’t noticed four times more money in my bank account or not found a decent range of software to accessorize my MacBook Pro with. In fact, I’ve noticed – and so has my spouse – I’m much more likely to buy a Mac app I trial than I was likely to buy as a Windows guy.

The joint Avangate – The VAR City webinar is just what the title says: a 60 minute crash course on channel management – touching on key things about selling through resellers, from what it takes to lay the foundations for a successful reseller network to the latest technologies available for channel management.

Are your products channel ready?

Channel expert Ken Beam @ The VAR City brought in his 25 years of experience in Strategic Partnership Management and Development. Channel readiness quiz aside (assuming you passed it :)), Ken pointed out you need to really understand resellers and what motivates them, what business model they work on (a reseller on a 70/30 model, where 70% of revenue comes from services will obviously be interested in services opportunities).

So here you are, another ordinary day running your microISV. Pretty much like yesterday; not unlike tomorrow.

You’re doing what you’ve done, you’re all nice and cozy in your daily routine. The problem you have is that while you’ve been sleepwalking along, the rest of the world has been very much awake. And unless you wake up and stop drifting you’re going to be like someone falling asleep while driving: fine, until you hit the oncoming truck in the other lane.

Let’s take a little test, shall we? Maybe you don’t need a wake up call and can skip the rest of this post.

Join us for an informal gathering in Mountain View!

If you’ve met with one of the Avangate guys or gals, then you probably know that this year we worked hard. We attended lots of conferences, had presentations, booths and wrote a lot of white papers and other articles. But you should also know that we also like to play hard and relax with our friends and partners.

That’s why I’m happy to invite you at the Casual Drinks with Avangate – Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at the Tied House in Mountain View. It’s the perfect time to come meet the Avangate US team and schmooze with other people from the software business. The event will be hosted by Casey Potenzone, VP Sales, and Daniel Nicolescu, Business Development Manager.

Discovering the fan part of your partners and mingle with software people seems like having a good time to me. Or at least because it’s easier to explain what you do to people that talk the same business language like you do, it should be a relaxed, informal schmooze. Of course I also happen to know that Daniel is an excellent wine expert so it’s always nice to be around him at parties ;)

If it sounds like fun to you too, register now here.