Release 4.0 Status

October 2002

Bob Hornick, President

The Release 4.0 Project was originally conceptualized in 1998 and 4.0A was delivered to the initial test sites in the summer of 2000. Since then, we have poured a tremendous amount of effort into development. The software is now installed at eleven customers ranging from our smallest laptop based customers to our largest customer. Five of these customers have branch offices connected either over CIM-Mux or Terminal Services. We would especially like to thank the King, Soehner, and Etherington offices for living through some of the hairiest testing situations I have ever seen. They were not only test sites, but at times; complete guinea pigs that were openly flayed.

As many of you know, Release 3 was a carry over from the design concepts used on the Wicat and is already highly regarded as having superior speed and performance. Our core Systems Software has now been restructured to deliver even higher performance in the Windows-Intel environment and when the later stages are completed, will deliver the best performance possible over VPN and Internet connections for people working at home or in branch offices.

Release 4 also uses an upgraded core record structure for labels and risk headers. Some of the advantages these provide are enhanced searching capabilities. For example, the system automatically provides postal code, telephone number, and name searches.

One of the most time-consuming portions of the software was the New PrntSetup. It is part of a remarkable new printing system that provides total control over all printing in the software. We analyzed all the printing situation issues reported by our customers on Release 3 and this new system addresses all of them. It lets you set up each printer and its trays independently and provides real flexibility in all printing situations.

EDI Communications has been overhauled and now handles most communications problems automatically by simply restarting a session. Support has already reported significantly reduced calls from the brokers that have this release installed.

A new GUI Interface called VCIM has been started. Most of the System setups have been moved into VCIM. You can also already do some basic CSR procedures in VCIM.

Roll-out of Release 4.0 is deliberately going slowly. We are still working on some major functions (Change Client Account Code) plus numerous minor issues in the Release that have been reported by our initial sites. Some functions have not been used in the field yet (not all brokerages use all parts of the system). We would like to get all of these resolved before doing a mass release.

Support is prioritizing the Release 4 install schedule. Customers that really need the release for one reason or another and customers that can test are higher up on the list. We expect another eight to twelve installs should be completed by the end of 2002.

To keep everyone updated, we will start describing some of the new features of Release 4.0 in more detail in the next few issues of CIM-Sphere.