Ask HN: Is there a market for a multi-computer remote control app?

2 points by vsakos 10y ago ↗ HN

Back in school a friend of mine and me created an app prototype for controlling multiple computers at once. Since there was no screen sharing, there were just basic tasks like shutting down computers, sharing a file, running an app, etc., but you could run them on hundreds or thousands of computers with a single click.

He is not interested in this anymore, but I'm thinking about rebuilding everything from scratch (the old one was built with Delphi and PHP - yes, don't laugh, a TCP socket server in PHP CLI). The only problem is, I'm not sure there is a market for a software like this, since now everyone is into TeamViewer and other 1-to-1 screen-sharing remote control tools. Who would use this app? Maybe schools for managing their computers in classrooms/computer labs?

Another question is, if I decide to create it and make it paid, which model will be the best?

- Selling the app server and the customers will have to install it on their own machine/VPS

- Running the app servers myself and selling it as a SaaS

- Both

The client software for the slave machines would be available for free of course.

1 comment

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PaulHoule 10y ago ↗

It is an established market.

In the Linux world, for instance, there are all kinds of tools for managing server farms.

Windows includes all sorts of management APIs which can be accessed through COM and .NET, so you can write scripts in some language like VB.net or F# to automate tasks.

There may be an opportunity there but it is going to be something specific.