best.aprilnn.ru is the site of the Nizhny Novgorod company "April Info" (Апрель Инфо), devoted to the BEST brand of accounting and trade software. In 2001 the homepage title read "Gruppa APREL - BEST \ Novosti" (Group APRIL — BEST \ News)[1], later "BEST - Aprel Info (Nizhny Novgorod) - Novosti" (BEST — Aprel Info (Nizhny Novgorod) — News)[2], and the nn.ru directory described the firm as an "authorized dealer of the company 'Intellekt-Servis'" offering "comprehensive automation of accounting on the basis of BEST-brand software. Supply, support, training, consultations"[5]. The site was one of several domains of the "Aprel Group": its pages linked to "Aprel Info", "Aprel Soft", "Aprel Servis", "KonsultantPlyus", "1C", "BEST" and "Sonet NN"[1]. The first snapshot of the homepage in the web archive is dated May 19, 2001[1], the last — May 14, 2004[4].

An update feed instead of a storefront

The homepage was arranged as a news feed: a list of dated headlines at the top, their full texts below, each with a "back to top" link. The homepage itself was the news section, and the menu led to sections "Programs", "Price list — BEST", "About the company", "Vacancies" and "Our staff"[1]. The page's meta keywords listed the whole product line: "best-ofis, best-4, best-2+, best-pro, best-finanaliz" ("BEST-Office, BEST-4, BEST-2+, BEST-Pro, BEST-Finanalysis"), alongside "bukhuchet" (accounting), "torgovyi uchet" (trade accounting), "skladskoi uchet" (warehouse accounting), "kadrovyi uchet" (personnel accounting)[1].

The content of the feed was almost entirely technical and addressed to existing users of the software. Over the summer of 2002 the site reported ten update packages for "BEST-4" version 9.05/001 — from June 16 to August 13[2]. The entries dealt with specific bugs: in the "Payroll Accounting" subsystem the program crashed when editing timesheet columns, in "Cash Desk" the generation of the cash book was restored for accounts with uppercase letters in the number, in "Fixed Assets Accounting" the mechanism for closing periods "on large databases" was reworked[2]. The new edition 9.06/001 was released in two parts, in August and September 2002, followed by two more update packages[3]. A separate line of news concerned legislation: in January 2001 the site reported that the systems "BEST-4", "BEST 2+", "BEST-OFFICE" and "BEST-PRO" supported the new Chart of Accounts approved by Order No. 94n of the Ministry of Finance of October 31, 2000, and the calculation of personal income tax and the unified social tax under Chapters 23 and 24 of the Tax Code[1].

Prices in conventional units

The price list was kept in conventional units (u.e.), and a change in the exchange rate was itself news. As the homepage reported, "as of 05.03.2001 a new exchange rate for the conventional unit is set at 27 rubles per conventional unit"[1]; from October 1, 2002, for sales outside Moscow and the Moscow region the rate became 31 rubles 50 kopecks[3]. In March 2001 "BEST-Office" was sold at a discount: the local version dropped in price from 240 to 150 c.u., the network version — from 480 to 300 c.u.[1] At the same time the program "BEST-2+" was withdrawn from sale (as of January 10, 2001), and its support was to end from January 1, 2002; switching to "BEST-4" or "BEST-Office 2.0" gave a 50% discount to users on warranty service and 30% to others[1].

Next came the developer's promotions: a 15% discount on "BEST-4" until August 31, 2002 with the claim that "more than 30,000 accountants have chosen 'BEST-4'"[2]; from November 15, 2002 — "BEST-5 at the price of BEST-4" with a certificate for a system exchange[3]; from January 1 to February 28, 2003 — a discounted sale of "BEST-OFFICE" for the new simplified taxation system at 150 c.u. for the single-user version and 450 c.u. for the network version[3]. The last price-related news is dated September 3, 2003: from September 15 it reported a price increase for support of BEST programs — 465 rubles per hour of specialist work, 279 rubles for a specialist call-out[4].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site was listed in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet directory twice: the nn.ru classifier carried it both in the section "Firms (Enterprises): Software: Workstations, Accounting and Warehouse Software, Analytics" and in the section "Firms (Enterprises): Computers and Office Equipment: Other Computer Services"[5][6]. A site's place in the list was determined by Counter.nn.ru: next to each site stood a rating figure, itself a link to the counter's statistics page. In the snapshot of the accounting software section from April 25, 2002, best.aprilnn.ru had a rating of 10.79 — against 109.1 for its neighbor in the same section, the site "1C:Franchisee Aprel Soft (Nizhny Novgorod)" from the same group[5]. In the snapshot of the computer section from October 29, 2002, the rating was 22, and the site followed "Vage Computer" (23) and the "Satellit" club (26)[6]. For more on how these figures work, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, best.aprilnn.ru does not appear; other "Aprel" sites take part in it — "Aprel Servis" (april.nnov.ru) and "Aprel Soft" (1c.aprilnn.ru)[7].

How it closed

Updates stopped in the autumn of 2003: the last news item on the homepage is dated September 3, 2003, and in the last snapshot of the homepage, from May 14, 2004, it still remained the top entry of the feed — no new ones had appeared in the meantime[4]. There are no later copies of the homepage in the web archive, and at the time of the check made for this entry the domain best.aprilnn.ru no longer existed. What became of the company afterward cannot be reconstructed from the surviving materials.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, section "Workstations, accounting and warehouse software, analytics", 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru catalog, section "Other computer services", 2002 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)