White Knight (software)

White Knight was a commercial communications program by Scott Watson for the Apple Macintosh that replaced his Red Ryder bulletin board system (BBS) software.

Macintosh magazines rated Red Ryder highly. Scott rejected orders from both computer stores and distributors and just concentrated on making Red Ryder better. Many bulletin boards ran his offer.Fact|date=July 2008

Then Watson made a fateful decision. He doubled the price of Red Ryder software to USD$80 simply because he wanted to keep getting the $40 he always had plus a little more for his improvements. He sold to stores but still refused to sell to distributors, because they wanted a 60 percent cut. He concentrated on making his product still better and on servicing anyone who wanted help.Fact|date=July 2008

Next, Watson came up with a program for anyone to create a BBS. It was called Red Ryder Host, but later renamed Second Sight. Scott introduced the new program in the same way: on bulletin boards. By then, Watson operated his own bulletin board. Anyone could order directly from him.Fact|date=July 2008

Watson explained how his marketing evolved:

quotation|"Bulletin boards help distribution. Our store sales tripled in three years since going into stores. There has been a switch-over. As volume increased (with no overhead increase), our cost per disk dropped.

"At the end of our third year selling to the trade, we began to sell through a distributor, Ingram-Micro D. At the same time we started to advertise. We began to run for six months a full-page ad in three Mac magazines. As soon as the ads started, we had a big burst of sales."Fact|date=July 2008

Watson's two products were perfectly suited to sell via a BBS. White Knight universalized the Mac, enabling it to communicate with most other PC and mainframe makes. Second Sight enabled anyone to set up a BBS with a Mac and modem.