I've had similar reactions from Project Managers after I showed them some versioned Excel files. They were blown away by the ability to go "back in time without having to manage copies". The revision graph totally floored them.
There's an opportunity here somewhere... take TortoiseSVN, remove all ability to branch/merge and anything beyond taking a file forward and backward in a timeline, make it stupidly simple and use words that non-technical people understand. And then sell it as the "time machine for files".
For recurring income, make it a DVCS (so start with TortoiseHG instead of TortoiseSVN) and offer to back up their files for $5/mo and make the "backup" a `hg push remote`
I'm telling you, it's amazing how few people who work with computers and digital files all day long have _no_ idea about cvs,svn,hg,git, etc.
They think that if it's not handled by the display application (Excel, Word, etc), it's not possible. They have no conception of doing stuff on the file level.
The GPL license may be an impediment to this plan, and the DVCS concepts will probably be far too complex when dealing with non-technical people who just want to work together.
My experiences suggest that the money would be in setting up and training, rather than a product as such. I did think about it carefully and design something (easier tools, server side search), but really it didn't seem worth it.
There's an opportunity here somewhere... take TortoiseSVN, remove all ability to branch/merge and anything beyond taking a file forward and backward in a timeline, make it stupidly simple and use words that non-technical people understand. And then sell it as the "time machine for files".
For recurring income, make it a DVCS (so start with TortoiseHG instead of TortoiseSVN) and offer to back up their files for $5/mo and make the "backup" a `hg push remote`
I'm telling you, it's amazing how few people who work with computers and digital files all day long have _no_ idea about cvs,svn,hg,git, etc.
They think that if it's not handled by the display application (Excel, Word, etc), it's not possible. They have no conception of doing stuff on the file level.