In October 2010 Netformx hired seasoned executive Allan Alexopulos for the newly created position of Vice President of Services and Support.  This role focuses on introducing new processes and tools to enhance the productivity of our users while managing the daily operations for support, consulting, professional services, content operations and education.  Much progress has been made to grow and reorganize these organizations, but there is more work to be done.  Allan will continue to keep you apprised of new developments you can leverage. He will also use this blog in the event we experience problems that may impact your business and communicate what we are doing to address them quickly. We hope that you will find value and solace with Allan’s periodic updates.

In April, Netformx announced end-of-life for older versions of the Netformx Updater technology.  On May 31, 2011, you will only be able to update the DesignXpert KnowledgeBase if you are on v12.3.10 or v12.3.12 of the Updater.  You can read about the details here, and download the latest updater here.  The important thing about this transition, and similar transitions coming, is our emphasis on providing a more uniform and stable environment for Netformx applications.  By working with our customers to tighten up the supported versions of Netformx software we will be able to focus more closely on developing applications and supporting our users with more stable and predictable software.  While your average PC desktop environment can be a little like the wild west, we are beginning to make progress and doing our part to provide reliable, efficient, and flexible solutions.

We had a lesson this week about the importance of our linkage to our partners. For many of you, DesignXpert links to important systems within your company or links to communications equipment from major manufacturers.  If you are a user of Cisco Discovery Service, you certainly were reminded of this linkage if you tried to submit a Discovery transaction and did not receive a timely response this week.  Many of you called Netformx Support to learn that Cisco is running a backlog on their servers that could delay your results.  Click here for details on this specific issue.

We wanted to let you know that we are working closely with Cisco Services to make sure we collectively give you better visibility of the status of important services like CDS.  Our business continues to evolve and we will evolve with it, enhancing our services to better inform you of the important linkages within the Netformx value chain. 

As part of our continuing effort to improve satisfaction with Netformx products and services, I wanted to preview a few enhancements coming your way.  We have conducted a series of customer surveys, talked to many users worldwide, and are paying close attention to your opinions on what where we can improve.

You have communicated that we must be more proactive when notifying you of impending changes to your Netformx environment before they come to you in the weekly update.  This will provide you enough advance notice to set your Netformx updater accordingly and download major releases on your timeframe, not ours. 

In this spirit, this is your advance notice that the new Updater version which has been available for several weeks on an optional basis will become mandatory on April 6.   Our experience with over 400 users to date has been positive.  If you haven’t already transitioned to the new Updater your action is required by April 6 to ensure a successful transition.  In short, if your personal or corporate firewall is locked down tight, you may need to add some rules to ensure you can still receive updates from our upgraded content server.  More information on this important change can be found here.

There is more on the way.  Netformx is working on several enhancements to our support infrastructure to help you be more productive with Netformx products and services.  In the coming year we will be expanding hours of coverage for support, enhancing self help tools and offering new on-demand support options for network discovery and Netformx reporting.

Look for announcements in the coming months about these and other enhancements to Netformx products and services.

Regards,

Allan Alexopulos
Vice President, Services & Support

February 7, 2011

To all our Netformx Users,

In today’s fast-paced technology world, we have the responsibility for keeping our products current on many levels.  From our desktop architecture and software distribution to content from our many design partners, we live at the very demanding intersection of many influences. Our user base has also been growing substantially, bringing a diversity of expectations with it.

I would like to take this opportunity to outline some of what we are doing to better meet our collective goal to consistently provide a productive, stable and responsive network design environment.

• To better accommodate the demands of a growing worldwide base of users and accelerating demands for software innovation, Netformx has just invested in a major upgrade to our content distribution network to make sure there is always enough capacity to meet peak demands. High availability and redundancy will ensure you will get software and content updates faster than ever.
• In order to ensure Netformx products have the best infrastructure to allow for product enhancements and new features, we recently upgraded to .NET 4. While the transition was seamless for most, we recognize that some of you have had to take manual steps to make this transition.  If you are running Windows 7 64 bit, click here to review the additional steps for your environment or contact support to ensure a smooth transition.
• Some of you have experienced software issues that have limited productivity and while Netformx has historically been very fast to correct issues, we must do a better job of testing and release management.  We are committed to making that happen and fast.

Our immediate goal is to create a stable, predictable, responsive and positive experience for our users.  Watch this blog for additional information regarding our plans in support of these goals and the substantial investments we are making. At the end of the day, you will be our measure of success. 

We hear from you when we do well, like our just completed customer survey reporting that 90% of you say Netformx makes your job easier.  We also hear from you when we have room for improvement, like when your Updater sessions take too long. 

You can trust that we take your feedback seriously and are working hard to exceed your expectations and make you wildly successful with Netformx solutions.  We look forward to our ongoing relationship to help you find new and faster ways to accelerate your company’s revenue.  Thank you again for your continued confidence and support.

Download DesignXpert 12.7.0.37 Service Pack

Download Netformx 12.3 Updater

Regards,

Allan Alexopulos
Vice President, Services & Support