To:        All WinTOTAL users
From:    David Biggers, Chairman, a la mode, inc.
Re:       WinTOTAL and related projects’ status

We’ve covered a lot of ground over the past month, both in our products and services and in these communications, and I want to again reiterate how valuable your feedback has been to me personally as well as to the company.  Your comments, critical and supportive, factual and emotional, have helped focus us on the real issues which matter to you. 

We’re doing that without abdicating our responsibility to apply our own vision and leadership as well to less-tactical challenges facing you.  You want us to continue to be the thought leader, and we will.  You’ll see more out of us next week on that front, expanding on the “report centric” and “business centric” groupings I touched on two weeks ago.  We’re creating a comprehensive road map on how we’ll approach future development, and we’ll share that with you so we’re all on the same page.

I know we’re all incredibly busy, so I’ll keep this as short as possible: 

1.  Non-lender forms will be in the April 14^th update.   As Adam mentioned in his update e-mail, the new Appraisal Institute AI Reports™ non-lending forms will be in next week’s update.  More addenda and general-purpose forms will follow. 

2.  The “rollback utility” is ready for you to download.   If you’d like to take a machine from WinTOTAL Version 5 (Aurora) and roll it back to Version 4 (Athena), you can do so now.   We’ve used it with betas as well as actual rollback candidates and are confident it’s what some of you are looking for.  Many of you don’t want to roll back, and I don’t blame you.  You want all the new stuff, but you want it rock solid.  I agree.  The rollback option is simply for those who don’t value the changes and want the old version.  The rollback is not some way of washing our hands of improvements to the new version.  Quite the contrary.

To download the rollback utility, and to order a replacement Version 4 CD, go to:
http://www.alamode.com/tech/htm/4999.htm

3.  Speed and stability issues are being improved vigorously.   There are modules now in beta testers’ hands which have been distributed already as alpha versions to selected users who had reported core stability issues, and they’ve had substantial positive effects on those experiencing instability.  These changes will be in beta testing for a while, and I think you’ll see major improvements yet again.  No single coming update is a magic wand, but I do think that by the beginning of May, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

4.  Workflow and ease of use are being addressed as well.  As I’ve been reading your comments, I’ve also been personally spending a lot of time looking at the menus, icons, and overall flow you encounter as you use our products.  Many times I’ve found that when someone says it takes longer to do something, it’s often due to the learning curve involved.  When I say that, I don’t mean the fault lies with the user -- that’s our responsibility.   We’re the ones designing it.   Trust me, that aspect will dramatically improve.  I’ve been in your shoes as a day-to-day appraiser in a two-man shop (under my dad), so I do know what a production environment is like.  I’ll make sure we do a better job bridging the gap between the technology and your needs.

5.  The “net.X Connect” system is going to beta April 14^th.   If you’ll recall several weeks ago, in response to overwhelming feedback, we changed status messaging to be completely manual.  The final step in putting control of synchronization back in your hands is “net.X Connect”.  It’s a dirt simple tool that lets you selectively choose which orders, status and invoice information to sync, and when to sync it.  Also, because a great many of you have no choice but slow dial-up or satellite Internet connections, automatic synchronization can be incredibly inconvenient.  We’ll also add configuration options that let you tell WinTOTAL when to remind you to sync what you have “queued up”.   

That’s it for now.  There will of course be more tactical issues addressed in Adam’s update message next week, and a comprehensive listing of the specific current and coming changes.   

By the way, as you can tell we moved this e-mail from me to the Fridays alternating with the updates.  That way we don’t overload anyone, and you know on any Friday you’ll either hear from me or from Adam, with an update every two weeks and information (hopefully useful) in between. 

See you in two weeks.  As always, I’m directly reachable in the interim at dave.feedback@alamode.com. 

Dave Biggers
Chairman
a la mode, inc.