This case study describes how USB over Ethernet simplifies the daily workflow of Nathaniel Reeves, multimedia designer from LA.
Nathaniel Reeves has been working as a creative professional for over 15 years (design, music, and coding). His current focuses are GUI, illustration and sound design.
Industry: multimedia design.
Alex Taylor: What challenges made you search for the software of this kind?
Nathaniel Reeves: Working with computers my whole life I’ve grown accustomed to licensing restrictions on software, especially in the creative fields where many programs require hardware tokens (dongles) to operate. Working on multiple systems I find this type of licensing to be very fast, as I can simply move my token and have immediate access to my software wherever I go. The trouble is that after some years of working in the field you end up with quite a few tokens representing potentially tens of thousands of dollars of software licenses. I’ve nearly 100 individual licenses spread across 6 dongles (iLok, eLicenser, and various one-offs) that I use on a regular basis; it’s become quite a pain to move around and the prospect of having to contact all these different companies and negotiate replacements if I were to lose them is an absolute nightmare.
Alex Taylor: How did you get to know about USB over Ethernet for Mac by Electronic Team, Inc?
Nathaniel Reeves: I commonly access hard drives across my network – I got to thinking if there were a similar way to access my tokens across the network it would simplify my daily workflow and reduce my anxiety when traveling for work tremendously. I was pleasantly surprised to find precisely what I was looking for with USB over Ethernet.
Alex Taylor: Did you try other products for the same task before choosing Electronic Team, Inc. solution? Why did you prefer our product?
Nathaniel Reeves: I actually looked quite a bit but Electronic Team, Inc. USB over Ethernet is the only solution I could find that does what I need.
Alex Taylor: Please, describe how you are using our product now.
Nathaniel Reeves: I’ve got 6 dongles on a USB hub connected to my primary workstation (a MacPro) at home. If I want to work on my laptop in the house or on business travel, I don’t have to lug this USB hub and all these tokens around with me – I just log-in to my tokens remotely with USB over Ethernet over LAN or through my VPN – this gives me access to my licenses anywhere, with zero chance of losing them.
Alex Taylor: How did you benefit from using USB over Ethernet
Nathaniel Reeves: More of my time is spent on actual work instead of process overhead. It’s basically akin to having your licenses in the cloud – so long as your tokens are connected to a computer with net access you can get to them from anywhere, there’s no need to carry around all these tokens and stress about losing them or worse yet having them stolen.