The small digital plug beneath every product in the api webshop is barely noticeable, but according to api CEO Achim Heyne, it hides a very useful application. As a pioneer entrepreneur, he has a keen instinct for the fact that innovations need to be embraced quickly.
Achim Heyne and Michael Mohr have been closely connected for many years. Now the products in the api shop are also connected to the plugilo plug.
Being a pioneer is something that has always appealed to entrepreneur Achim Heyne. It was already the case 30 years ago, when Heyne, then an informatics student, entered the IT trade and, as Aachen’s lowest-priced provider for HP DeskJet 500 printers (499 Deutsche Mark), even beat Media Markt by undercutting them by 50 marks. An 18-hour workday, carrying 20-kilogram CRT monitors up five flights of stairs into the newly vacant room of a student flat-share that served as a 7-square-meter warehouse, writing text-based advertising for FidoNet, the mailbox network that existed before the internet, and constantly recalculating and weighing prices and margins: supplying private customers here with a 15 percent margin, supplying resellers there with larger volumes but only a razor-thin margin. Heyne had no private life, but he laid the foundation for api, the internationally established distributor with most recently EUR 1.4 billion in revenue.
New networking technology from plugilo
Frank Thelen, another — albeit not uncontroversial — pioneer entrepreneur with a passion for disruptive technologies, will speak in Bochum on Friday at the congress marking api’s 30th company anniversary. And Achim Heyne will speak as well: about how it all began, but even more about his new projects and a cooperation with plugilo. All these innovations are less about the physical IT trade and much more about the intelligent distribution of information, about reach for content that users can “pull” from websites of all kinds — shops, media portals, blogs, and other internet offerings — onto one platform and archive there. This takes place on plugilo. api is the first distributor to join this new networking technology.
Resellers visiting the api shop will find a button with a plug symbol and the note “Save” beneath every product. Clicking on it opens a card containing all information about the product. The card can be saved, along with many other cards from other websites that have integrated the plugilo plug. For example, all news items published on CRN. These are also displayed to resellers in the api shop and to users of all other websites that offer plugilo. More reach through the combined network of all plugilo players — that is the idea.
A shopping cart for all kinds of content across websites
“That’s a cool thing,” says Heyne. He uses plugilo as a kind of “digital temporary shopping cart” in which he stores product information and other content displayed on websites featuring the corresponding plugilo plug. Collecting it, storing it in one place, reviewing it later, and perhaps ordering it: for Achim Heyne, such a “temporary storage space” that can capture content across websites is an innovation. “We want to be among the first to be part of it,” he says. The cooperation with plugilo underlines api’s role as a “technology pioneer.”
“Success lies in simplicity”
The striking yet discreet plug, the idea of networking all websites behind it, and the aggregation of content in a consistent and appealing playing-card format could catch on. Michael Mohr, CEO of Starnberg-based DCI, plugilo’s parent company, is convinced of this.
Achim Heyne, whom he has known for a long time, was quickly enthusiastic about the concept (“easy to integrate. Success lies in simplicity”). All products in the api shop are connected to the plugilo plug. He intends to recommend it to manufacturers.
In addition, Michael Urban has invested in plugilo (as reported by CRN). Yet another pioneer of distribution who wants to help this new networking technology achieve a breakthrough.