Q. Jim, tell us about your company.
We provide a service that results in natural gas savings along with on-going maintenance and verification to assure that the conservation is in fact really occurring. As a commodity, natural gas rates fluctuate up and down on a monthly basis. Consumers typically use natural gas for hot water, overall heating and cooking. Our service reduces the overall consumption of the natural gas used for hot water creation and heating. Our systems control and monitor the consumption of gas throughout the usage cycle, altering the supply curve to meet the demand curve. The end result is 15-40% savings.
Q. What would your average 'customer' look like?
A typical customer would be a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) or other large property owner, including retirement homes, Hotel/Motels and Dormitories.
Q. I understand that you were just recently introduced to Alpha Five.
Yes, our President had had positive experiences with V4 and was promoting that we develop and prototype our new systems on V5. Initially I was somewhat hesitant because I had not heard of Alpha Software. In addition our customer facing platform was web based using SQL/ASP/JAVA/ActiveX. At the time V6 was not available, so anything we did would eventually need to be recreated on a web platform. Initially I played with Alpha Five version 5 and created some back office systems to see if it would be fast, flexible and cheap enough for consideration, (note; we had bids for the initial development ranging from $10K to $50K depending on platform and utilizing offshore resources). , We are now continually expanding what we do in Alpha Five. As we learn more about the capabilities of what Alpha can do we move future development to it as opposed to other languages
Q. What have you done to date with Alpha Five to date?
The initial system took about a month to complete in Alpha Five version 5. But that was done without using Xbasic. Once we validated that Alpha Five could handle the business needs, we started researching / considering whether or not version 6 would indeed take version 5 to the next level of web interactivity (without having to learn Xbasic). Initial thoughts were that it would, (or worse case we would know in a short period of time if we needed to switch to some other technology) so we decided to upgrade.
Q. Can you give us a little insight into your application?
Currently our environment is divided into customer facing and internal/back office applications. The customer facing portion is and was designed internally then outsourced for actual coding and production in C++ and Visual Basic. The servers are collocated with backup, redundancy etc.. The actual hosting of the customer facing portion is outsourced. The internal Alpha Five applications provide product tracking, manufacturing, work orders, some CRM, billing, and marketing and this is hosted, via the Alpha Five Web Application Server, from our offices.
Once we are installed on a client's facility, all control and operational data is recorded and posted to the web where our servers and technicians analyze it. If an issue arises, an alert is dispatched to the client so that operational efficiency is maintained and the problem is resolved. In addition, our clients can view runtime economic data, ongoing monitoring and verification along with site and service history. Most of this data is logged, created and tracked in Alpha Five then exported to the customer facing environment.
Q. In a short span of time, you have a working web site using the Alpha Five Web Application Server. How was the process?
Like anything there is a learning curve. However in the case of version 6 there is actually 2 products; Alpha Five version 6 and the Web Application Server. With version 6 there was minimal learning other than getting acquainted with the new genies and a few nuances. The Web Application Server is a different set of learning because it's a very powerful tool yet you're not dealing directly with the database, rather you're setting up rules or genies in the Alpha Five "grids" that will in turn interact with the database.
Q. When developing with the Web Application Server, did you have to do a lot of coding or were you able to leverage Alpha Five's many genies to create the functionality?
At this point I would say its 90% genies. The other 10% is not complicated, but it is Xbasic.
Q. The bottom line is Return on Investment. What are your thoughts on ROI using Alpha Software products?
The ROI considerations alone make Alpha Five version 6 and the Web Application Server a slam dunk. But another very important consideration is that end users can work with the IT folks to prototype on the fly. As a result they can see the progress being made and it builds for a collaborate relationship.
Q. How are your end users reacting to the development process with Alpha Five?
The user reaction was initially somewhat skeptical, however as we retired certain processes users were forced to use the new Alpha Five applications. As this occurred users would provide us with feedback, both positive and negative. Because we could implement their recommendations rather quickly the collaboration between development and users was dramatically improved.
Q. What are your plans for Alpha Five in the future?
It should be noted that the Alpha Five version 5 systems we initially built have been ported to version 6 and they continue to run via a shadow DB environment. Because of the flexibility of forms, browses, reports, etc, we will continue to maintain the shadow DB on our LAN. Reports will continue to be created in native Alpha, than accessed via the Web Application Server. We will also test/prototype using native Alpha Five. As we need Alpha Five native applications rolled out to our remote offices they will be created in the Web Application Server, then the remote offices will access Alpha via the web.
Q. What about your plans for the Web Application Server?
As we learn more of the Web Application Server capabilities we will continue to expand its use. For example, we have been experimenting with Freeform layouts which in themselves are very powerful and flexible. We are also looking at tying our customer facing SQL systems and back office Alpha Five systems more tightly together using the Web Application Server.
Q: Jim, now that we have all these technical issues out of the way, tell us a little about yourself, do you have any hobbies or avocations?
I have three kids, so it seems like most of my time is playing with them; Soccer, Swimming, Cheerleading etc. but when I do get some spare time I like to race shifter karts and play basketball.
Q: Basketball I understand, but what are shifter karts?
Racing Go Karts, they go about 110 mph, 0-60 and back to 0 in about 3 seconds, you can go 100 in 5 seconds and the can pull 3 G's in the corners. Champ car and Formula 1 Race drivers use them for staying in shape.