E-News From The Suntower Volume VII, #13

News From The Suntower!

'The Electronic Newsletter For Users
of Simple Accounting for Forms Experts!'

Volume VII #13
07/23/05

IN THIS
ISSUE:

Reminder: Holiday Notice Coming Soon!

Current Leasing Offers!

Beta Testers Wanted!

Ciaràn's Corner: Guest Rant: Whither Suntower?

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E-News is edited by Maireàd Ni Dhonnellaigh
The views expressed herein are solely those of Suntower Systems

Holiday Notice: Mark Your Calendars!
It's coming up quick! The week we've been telling you about for all these months will soon be here. Are you OK? Any last minute things? As they say at the altar, 'Speak now or forever hold your peace!'.

Being a family run business it is extremely difficult to get everyone together all at the same time. For our twentieth anniversary, we're getting everyone together from all four offices for a week-long love-fest in Dublin. And the net effect of this is: we will be closed from business for all except absolute emergencies from Monday August 1st through Sunday August 7. We will re-open on Monday, August 8th. Again, if there are real emergencies (database crash, earthquake, etc.) there will be someone available to help, but unless it is urgent. please bear with us until we're back.

Current Leasing Offers From Citi
Our friend Pat Burke has asked us to post the following current leasing offers from CitiGroup. Some of you may still not be aware that all Suntower Systems' products and services may be leased. Yes, this includes all our software and programming services.

$1 Purchase Option

36 Months

$0 down

$20k-$50K 10.28% promotional interest rate (first year)

$1 Purchase Option

60 Months

$0 down

$20k-$100K 8.04% promotional interest rate (first year)

Fair Market Value Lease

36 Months

$0 down

$20k-$100K 1.44% implicit promotional interest rate (first year)

(for this one software and services may not exceed 20% of equipment cost)

Looks good? It should. Leasing is an often overlooked way to finance IT, even though many of you lease your vehicles. But if it makes sense to lease your truck, then why not your computing equipment and software? The life span of most computing hardware and software now is easily the equal of most company cars and trucks. Call or e-mail for further information.

Final Attempt: We're Looking For B-Testers For Upcoming SAFExtensions...
A couple of things we're working on that we'd like to get testers for. Please contact your support technician if there is interest. And by the way, never mind the remarks about how we should keep this all 'hush hush'. You should know by now that's not how we do things.

Revenue Optimizer

This is a SAFExtension designed to do something you may have thought about doing (or are doing already with spreadsheets but not very well). It will be a SAFE implementation of a type of product already in use by many, many large corporations.

A Revenue Optimizer is a program that attempts to analyze your sales history and determine several things:

1. What is the optimum price for a product?
2. What is the optimum quantity to order (or stock) for a product?

Now you may think that you already know this stuff; perhaps using good old intuition. But RO looks with a cold eye on actual data to see how changes in price, order quantities, delivery times (and other factors) affect how much you sell and how much profit you make. That's the optimization; the software suggests the most profitable way to sell a product based on previous history.

Also, RO can tell you how much changing a variable might affect sales. For example, if you raise prices 5%, will this create a reduction in sales? If so, how much? RO tells you whether it's a risk worth taking or not.

A well-implement RO is somewhat miraculous. It can provide sales data that no simple reporting can touch. That said, it isn't for everyone. To benefit from RO, you need to have a series of products for which you have consistent sales---either stock items in an inventory that turns frequently or forms management clients who order the same items over and over.

Mapper

Mapper is a steroid enhanced version of the Microsoft Maps information you can already get from SAFE. Mapper enhances SAFE in the following ways:
1. Allows your sales people to view/print/download maps of any address in SAFE. If you are already using PDAXtensions, you can download this information to your PDA.

2. Allows your sales people to view/print/download driving directions of any address in SAFE. Again, if you are already using PDAXtensions, you can download this information to your PDA.

3. Allows your sales people to create Combo Maps based on their Daily Calendar, automatically from one appointment to the next. In other words, if you have three customer appointments in your Daily Calendar, Mapper can automatically create a single list of Driving Directions guiding you between each stop all in one step.

4. Allows you to project sales history or customer lists onto zoomable maps. Create a Sales History Query and then generate a map showing graphically the location and density of sales.

5. Allows you to generate inventory maps, graphically displaying the location of various inventory items.

Obtaining these maps requires only that the user be able to run the same reports and queries that are already a part of SAFE. The only difference is that, instead of the output going to a printer, it appears as a map.

If either of these products sound of interest and you think you have what it takes to get these polished to a razor sharp edge and would like to contribute your input into making them as easy to use as possible, please contact us as soon as possible to apply. In return, you'll receive... well our deepest thanks, of course! But as usual, after each product ships, testers will be evaluated for participation and, who knows? you may end up with a free copy... or at least a snappy Suntower Systems t-shirt!

Till Next Time!

Ciaran's Corner: Guest Rant From My Brother!!
Continuing in a series of guest editorials (or as I like to call them 'Summer Filler'), here is a fine rant from my very own brother, boss and they guy who's job I took; ladies and gentlemen... Mr. Seàn Alastair O' Mearain...

'Howdy',

Yes, I did indeed have Ciaràn's job. For seven looooong years during which we transitioned from a company with 50 customers and 5 employees to something like 13,000 customers and 50 employees. And he can keep it.

I have read Ciaràn's bi-weekly rants with a mix of alarm, amusement and astonishment. As his level of bile increased, I kept wondering from whence would come the backlash. But there has been no backlash to speak of--or certainly not from Ciaràn's fire and brimstone. My only conclusion is that no one really reads his articles. (ed. note: Sure we're all scientific types, so let's have some fun and test this theory, shall we? The first person to e-mail in 'Marron Wears Women's Clothing' wins a gift certificate worth 1 hour of custom programming.) And that's kind of sad because there's a lot of meat in what he writes about. But even more important to me is the sense I have that we're a puzzle for a lot of you. In fact, I don't think many of you understand what we're trying to do here (beyond the obvious). We have a very well-defined list of standing orders and I want to tell you what they are:

1. Stay in business. Seriously. Look at our competitors in the 'forms' market. We're the only one that hasn't done an extreme makeover. Our primary goal is to be around until 2020. Everything else stems from this. There has never been a year when Suntower Systems did not make more money than the year before. This is critical to you because it means that we offer stability.

2. Stay small. Yes, we went from a person to customer ratio of 10 to 1 (great for a private school) to something very typical for the 'software business'. In other words, we became something like everyone else. That's good and bad. But please review #1: by staying small we've weathered storms that have killed other competitors and hosed their customers. We've also maintained pretty much the exact same staff during that entire time. There have been exactly three departures from the company in all that time. So there is a continuity of knowledge that is a valuable asset.

3. Offer stuff that we find interesting and which other companies just don't do. The people here are all very talented. And frankly, accounting software is, well, somewhat dull; it's important, it's like any infrastructure; building roads isn't exactly cutting edge either. It's important to keep everyone stimulated. Fortunately, we're living in a time when the Internet is getting plumbed for all manner of truly wonderful services. Not all of you are taking advantage of them yet, but we keep working on them. Things like really secure credit card processing, links to vendor systems for truly competitive real-time quoting, and better and better PDA integration are important and will get even more so as time goes by.

4. Stay focused. We try not to do too many things. Several of our competitors have tried (and are trying) to blur the lines between the 'channel', vendors and customers. Some distributors have developed software. Some vendors have as well, or purchased a competitor. And then there are all the 'consortiums' which offer software as a part of a complete 'distributor in a box' package. We believe it is in everyone's best interest to maintain an arms-length relationship with all parties. It does no one any long term good for us to skew SAFE towards the desires of any one vendor or customer. That's why we constantly beg for your input. It is very important to us to stay agnostic in the various struggles for control that are a big part of this rapidly changing industry.

5. Offer a real partnership for those that want it. Maybe I should have put this higher on the list. What differentiates us more than anything else, I think, is that we offer highly tailored solutions but from a very solid core. We tend to think of it as a construction set, which offers most of the flexibility of custom software, but without quite so much suffering as one usually experience with one-off programs. I know a number of you bought into us thinking that we were low-price. Of course we're not! We offer a lower entry point, but that's because we're offering a construction set that needs to be added to. If you have a fixed set of needs that isn't likely to change over the years, we may not be for you. But if you're changing, just like the industry is changing, we want to work with you in a way that just isn't possible with our competitors' more 'packaged' systems.

I hope this helps you, our customers (and prospects), to understand how we view what we're trying to achieve. In short, we're trying to find that ever elusive balance between being a cottage industry that makes hand-crafted solutions and a traditional software vendor that sells a 'canned' package at a reasonable price through economies of scale. At the end of the day, one theme keeps coming back over and over: we need your input. To tell us how we're doing. To provide suggestions. To give us some guidance if you think we've lost our way rather than just stewing in silence. We're all in this together. At least that's how we have always viewed it. And likely always shall do.

Best,

---Seàn

Till Next Time!

Ciaràn Marron
Technical Support Manager
cm@suntowersystems.com

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. The information contained in this document represents the current view of Suntower Systems on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Suntower Systems must respond to change in market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Suntower Systems and Suntower Systems cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT. The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the use of this document. This document may be copied and distributed subject to the following conditions:
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End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume VII #13