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June 2010

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In this issue:
CEO's Report
RF6 version 2.3
RF6 version 2.4
Software as a Service
Introducing K Files in Africa
New White Papers
Customer Focus - Town of Cochrane
June Special Offer
New Personnel - Tony Holland
Training Update
Contact Update
   
   
Print Knowledgeone Corp Newsletter  

 

 

 

 

 

CEO's Report

Frank McKenna, K1 Corp CEO

The World Economies

Well, just when we thought the GFC was over, Europe implodes and the US slips backwards. Still, there is always the positive side – vacation properties in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland are now half the cost they were a few years ago. I hear Italy will be the next country in trouble so maybe we will shortly see cut-price Ferraris and designer clothes.

I am not actually suggesting that you should go out and buy a new vacation property in Europe or a Ferrari, but I do mean to illustrate that there is always some good news, even in the darkest of times. We just need to look for opportunities and we need to think positively. As Warren Buffett says, (and I paraphrase), ”Buy when others are selling and sell when others are buying.”

For us, a lot of the good news is due to K1Corp being privately owned. We don’t have a banker or analyst telling us how to run our business. We have many banks as customers so we love them, we just don't want to owe them money. We are still strongly customer and service centric and are still investing heavily in research and development – usually one of the first activities curbed by nervous banks and investors. Happily, I still make all the decisions as I have for 26 years so customers and quality still come first.

SaaS - Cloud Computing  - lowering your operating costs

In addition, and largely because we are self financing, we have been able to move smoothly to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model to suit our customers' requests for a ‘lower cost’ way to purchase, implement and manage our products and services. Basically, SaaS (hosting) provides a way to purchase our software and manage cash flow more effectively by substituting a single, low monthly payment for the large up front payment normally required with a software purchase.

Because we are self-financing there are no third parties involved and no complicated leasing or rental finance agreements to negotiate. It has always been our objective to make it as easy as possible to do business with us and SaaS is no exception.

It is also a way to avoid having to make significant investments in IT hardware and infrastructure because we provide all of that as part of our SaaS offering.

Our customers' interest in our SaaS offering is at the highest level ever and we guess that this indicates that many organizations are still feeling pain from the GFC and are still looking to lower costs. We are offering SaaS as a way to meet our customers’ requests for a lower cost way to purchase and operate our software.

New and Updated Products  - Your ASU at work

Our R&D efforts continue unabated and the immediate results are RecFind 6 version 2.3 and 2.4.

RecFind 6 version 2.3 is the next release from version 2.2 and contains many enhancements and improvements. RecFind 6 version 2.4 contains a brand new product, the RecFind 6 alternative user interface. This is a browser-based ‘thin-client’ user interface that is significant because it does not require the .NET Framework and it is relatively browser and operating system independent. That is, you will be able to run it with Safari, Firefox and Apple OS or Linux. It will also work with Apple's new iPad under the Safari browser. RecFind 6 is a very, very clever product and we estimate that it will save our customers many millions of dollars on roll-out and maintenance costs as well as providing a much more flexible operating platform.

New Personnel

As part of our expansion plans we have appointed a new Sales and Marketing Director, Tony Holland. Some of you may remember Tony from seven years ago when he worked for us as our Sales Manager. Tony left us for a very successful career at Fuji Xerox but we were able to entice him back in April to manage our expansion program and world-wide sales.

The Future

I personally think we are in for a few more years of tough times and empty political promises. As a business man and business owner that means four key things to me:

  1. Look after customers, increase our service level; put customers first. I firmly believe that if you look after customers, they look after you. I have always told my staff, “I don’t pay your salaries; customers do. So make sure they are one-hundred percent happy.”
  2. Keep costs low but keep standards high. Never sacrifice standards for cost savings; this is a short term policy and all it does is extend the time to failure. There are always savings to be found without sacrificing standards, especially product quality, service and support standards.
  3. Keep investing in innovation, the world hasn’t stopped, it has just slowed down. The companies that continue to invest will be in the best possible position for growth when our economies really do start to recover.
  4. Look after and protect your staff. As a software company we have three key assets, our Intellectual Property (IP), our customers and our staff. The Romans would have called this our ‘triumvirate’, each of equal importance. There can’t be IP or customers without loyal, committed staff.

The above are my four rules for running a successful business in tough times or at any time for that matter.

To our customers, please stick with us and we promise we won’t let you down. We will continue to provide the best service and the most innovative, most scalable and most stable products at the most effective cost. We will also continue to give you the smartest, most experienced and easiest people to talk to. This is what we have been doing for twenty-six years and I see no reason to change. 

Best Regards,
Frank McKenna, CEO

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RecFind 6 version 2.3

Version 2.3 will include the usual fixes and performance improvements (we are always striving to make RecFind 6 work faster over both the LAN and the Internet) together with some significant new features such as a brand new graphical user interface for Workflow, a new and easy way to schedule reports and thumbnails for images. Version 2.3 is in the final testing phase and we are looking for a June release to all customers.

New Features in 2.3 Summary

Improved support for 64 Bit Operating Systems
Improved Support for Windows 7
Scheduled Reports
EDOC thumbnails
Workflow graphical template designer
Improvements to Workflow (e.g., decision tasks)
Faster searches
New Thesaurus/Corporate Vocabulary searches
Button integrated with SharePoint, making it easy to capture documents stored in SharePoint with the Button
Record filters for Xchange import
Xchange now imports a K1 database

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RecFind 6 version 2.4 - the new 'thin-client' User Interface (UI)

Version 2.4 actually involves the addition of a new product to RecFind 6, a brand new and optional 'thin-client' user interface. This is based on the latest .NET technology and is unique in that it does not require the .NET Framework (as the RecFind 6 smart-client does) and it is also browser and operating system independent. This means for example that it will run in Firefox as well as Explorer and it will run on your Linux and Apple PCs as well as your Windows PCs. This particular product has required a lot of innovation and 'inventing' on our part.

We have made the new thin-client user interface look and feel as close as possible to the current RecFind 6 smart-client. They will also eventually (through several releases) have identical functionality. This means users will be able to move from one to the other without retraining. Customers can run both clients (smart and thin) at the same time and both are managed by the same concurrent user algorithm. So, if you for example have a 50 concurrent user license for RecFind 6, you can run any mix of smart and thin clients up to a maximum of 50. Pricing is also identical. We are planning on an October release of this new product, it is in Beta testing at the moment with one of our customers.

Apple iPad compatible!

Note that this new 'thin-client' UI does not replace the existing 'smart-client' UI; it is an alternative for those customers where it is a more appropriate technology. For example, where platform independence (operating system and/or browser) is an issue. For example, for those customers needing to run RecFind 6 on the new Apple iPad. We created it to widen the appeal of RecFind 6.

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Software as a Service (SaaS) / Hosting

We have always offered Subscription pricing as an alternative to 'up-front' pricing. Subscription pricing combines the software costs and maintenance cost into a single monthly fee. With upfront pricing (the usual way organizations buy software) you pay for the software in a single payment and then pay maintenance (we call it an ASU) annually.

SaaS extends the Subscription model to cover us actually running the application for you 'off-site' and providing all of the server related IT equipment and facilities required. We add a 'Hosting' charge to the subscription charge to give you a single monthly fee that covers the software, maintenance and all of the server equipment and server software required to run your RecFind 6 application. We also take care of all the updates required for the server, database (e.g., SQL Server) and the RecFind 6 application as well as backups.

We offer a range of SaaS options covering redundancy, backups, disaster recovery, etc and also offer options for application management (e.g., we can manage and run the RecFind 6 DRM and Xchange for you). There is no limit of what we can do including the scanning of paper documents and the registration of mail and emails.

You can tailor the SaaS service to your exact requirements, including the minimum period, and we can also convert your current 'payment up front' agreement for RecFind 6 into a SaaS agreement if required.

Read what industry leaders say about SaaS, Click here...

Please click here to request more information on our SaaS service..

Please click here to read more information on SaaS from our website..

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Introducing a new partner - K Files, Uganda, Africa

K Files is our newest RecFind 6 distributor located in Kampala, Uganda, Africa.

The Managing Director is Lilian Mukasa and Lilian can be contacted on 0712-787-668 or mukasa.lilian@gmail.com. Lilian describes her company as follows:

"K Files Ltd offers records management services and offsite storage. We ensure that your business has adequate and proper documentation of its essential transactions. In turn, your business' legal and financial rights are protected.

We store and archive your documents while maintaining the utmost confidentiality. Most importantly, we provide rapid retrieval of your documents when required. We use the RecFind 6 software suite to register and track documents throughout their lifecycle and to enable our clients to know the precise location of a document as it cycles throughout their offices.

Your records tell the story of your business operation; how do you want it to read?"

Mission: To create an organized document atmosphere in the business community in Uganda, to ensure a firm grip on all transactions and business processes.

Vision: To be the number one records repository and a solution to records management through the provision of software and storage facilities.

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New White Papers

Frank McKenna has been tapping away again on his computer writing more white papers on how to get the best out of RecFind as well as on current subjects topical to our industry. Please download the PDFs from the following links:

Managing Financial Transactions with RecFind 6

Contract Management with RecFind 6

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Customer Focus

The Town of Cochrane, Alberta, Canada

The real west is something that happens every day in Cochrane, not just a couple of weeks in summer. Cochrane is located in southern Alberta, Canada, in the beautiful Bow River valley, within view of the foothills and Rocky Mountains. Cochrane is where the trail meets the sky and the sidewalks are shared by people like you; ranchers, urban professionals and families pushing strollers. The pace is easier here, but just as much gets done. Cochrane is where you can live the wide open life you want to live.

It is easy to understand why over 15,000 people choose to live in Cochrane. Picturesque surroundings, a growing range of community facilities and a thriving economy, all built on the solid foundation of our western heritage - It creates a sense of place for all of us.

The Town of Cochrane has been a RecFind customer since 2001. It recently upgraded to RecFind 6 with the onsite assistance of Greg Warrilow from Knowledgeone Corporation. Cochrane use RecFind 6 and the RecFind 6 Button for Electronic Document and Records Management.

 

 

If you are interested in visiting this truly beautiful part of the world please Click here for the website and more information.

 

 

 

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June Special Offer

RecFind 6 Add-on Products

This special offer is to promote our range of add-on products for RecFind 6.

The add-on products provide additional options for imaging, document management, email management, label printing, barcoding and application integration. They have all been designed to make the above operations faster, easier and as 'automatic' as possible, saving you both time and money.

Please click on the following links for more information about our innovative add-on products. Learn how they can help your business better meet its objectives while saving money and becoming more efficient.

Your staff will love them because they will make their jobs much easier; we remove the tedious jobs and speed up every process.

GEM - complete and fully-automatic email management
RecCapture - a complete and fully-automatic solution to the shared drives problem
High Speed Scanning Module (HSSM) - the most efficient way to automate large volumes of paper scanning
The Mini API - the easiest, fastest way to integrate RecFind 6 to any other application
Button - the world's easiest way to manually capture electronic documents, emails and scan paper. Fully integrated with MS Office 2003 and 2007 plus Notes and GroupWise
Datalogic Memor portable barcode reader - speed up any tracking function, run most transactions from the Memor
ColorBar - the easiest, fastest and most professional way to produce colored file labels

This offer is valid up until June 30, 2010

Ten-Percent (10%) discount on all purchase of RecFind 6 Add-on products

If you would like a quotation for any of the above Add-on products please click here...

 

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New Personnel - Tony Holland

We are pleased to announce that Tony Holland has been appointed Sales and Marketing Director of Knowledgeone Corporation with world-wide responsibilities.

Tony has over eleven years experience in the document management and business process outsourcing industry with both Fuji Xerox (7 years) and the GMB Group, K1Corp's previous trading name, (4 years).

In this new role Tony is looking forward to helping K1Corp achieve its ambitious expansion and sales targets and is particularly looking forward to helping our customers optimize their document intensive business processes; leveraging off his experience and success at Fuji Xerox implementing large scale, document-centric projects.

Though he has been 'away' seven years Tony still remembers most of our customers and is looking forward to renewing contacts.

Tony is married with four children and his hobbies are surfing, dodging sharks and other board riders and trying his best to manage and clean up after four active children. He and Frank McKenna (our CEO) have been friends for many years and Frank is delighted to have Tony back at K1Corp, "The right man at exactly the right time!"

To contact Tony please click here..

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Training Update

Enthusiasm for RecFind 6 remains high with customers looking forward to getting it into production. The end users seem to love the new user interface and the fact that they use the same Windows product whether they work on the LAN or over the Internet.

Upcoming Training Schedule - Australia
 

 

Sydney

Melbourne

Brisbane

Adelaide

Perth

Hobart

June

User

 

 

 

 

21/22

 

Admin

 

 

 

 

23/24

 

July

User

 

 

26/27

 

 

 

Admin

 

 

28/29

 

 

 

August

User

 

 

 

23/24

 

 

Admin

 

 

 

25/26

 

 

September

User

 

6/7

 

 

 

 

Admin

 

8/9

 

 

 

 

October

User

18/19

 

 

 

 

 

Admin

20/21

 

 

 

 

 

November

User

 

 

8/9

 

 

 

Admin

 

 

10/11

 

 

 

December

User

 

 

 

 

 

 

Admin

 

 

 

 

 

 

North America

Course Date Cost
RecFind 6 User Training Los Angeles, CA June 28 - 29 2010 $850 pp
RecFind 6 Admin Training Los Angeles, CA June 30 - July 1 2010 $850 pp

To book your place at one of these upcoming training courses simply click on the following links:

RecFind Courses:
http://www.knowledgeonecorp.com/services/enrolonline.htm

For Europe, Africa, and North America we will be running additional RecFind 6 training course 'on demand' because of the vast geographical distribution of our customers.

To inquire about and book an onsite 'on-demand' training course please click here...

If you have any questions whatsoever regarding our Training courses or one of Knowledgeone Corp's Consulting services please email the Training Department.

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Contact Update

Have you recently shifted office or changed contact person?

For any updates, simply give us your new particulars, as listed below, and email them to our Sales Department.

Please include the following details:

Company Name, Contact Person, Job Title, Address, Email Address, Telephone Number, Fax Number, and Customer Number (if known)

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