The quality goes in before the software ships out.

This has been a fantastic week of transition for E₃ systems.  We have formally been in business for three years.  We are also on the cusp of a new software release. Today, I want to talk about our new product, Tony, and why you must wait a little longer before it goes live.

Early in 2013, a potential client called us out of the blue and wanted to know if we could put together a simple contact management system for them.  We rushed a prototype out and demonstrated it to the client.  They seemed enthusiastic until we gave them a contract and said they would have to pay us to finish the project since it was done on spec.  We never heard from that client again.  I suppose this was a good development because if they were not going to return our calls or honor a contract, I am sure that getting paid would have also been a severe problem.

The months of March and April were gloomy as we continued to sell our main product, Sully 2.0, and assess the failure of our prototype project.  Some good things came out of the work because we first developed experience in MVC 4 and Entity Framework code for rapid project turnaround.  By May, we devised a new project and idea, nick-named Tony after a famous Fiat mechanic.

Tony would be an easy-to-use system to track maintenance for vehicles in any size fleet. Trucking companies, rental firms, and even car dealerships could use the system to track when and where work was done.  It would become a living record, and best of all, it would obey the philosophy of all products at E₃ systems.  It would work on a smartphone, tablet, and personal computer.  We also leveraged the power of Microsoft Tag so someone in the field would scan a code on their phone and get instant information.

We had scheduled Tony to launch in July of 2013.  It was a hectic schedule made even more dramatic by the server migration we did to upgrade our software and databases.  Something had to give, and it was clear that the migration took precedence and that we would have to push back the release of Tony.  We also felt that we needed to do more work on the product before it was ready for release and sale.  I am deeply disappointed about this, but as the president of the company, I would instead ship quality software that releases something and then expect my customers to find bugs and act as our quality assurance team.

So, we are planning to release our Tony software in mid-September.  I felt that you, our customers, deserved an explanation.  We had been dropping hints about Tony for the last two months and thought you needed an honest explanation of why it is not here.  As a young start-up, we are not in the business of vaporware, so please forgive us for the delay.  If you have any questions or concerns, please drop us a line, and we will have an account executive contact you directly.

Until next time.