Another option... - David Hind Smith

Hi Frank and thanks for the comment,

I'm sure your software is very good and meets a particular need. Our software model is a little different then yours in that its both Mac and PC cross platform compatible and we offer a customized solution for each client rather then a generic product. For some of our clients, its the perfect fit coupled with our 24/7 support.

We're entering our 8th year of business and have numerous clients in the USA. The only disadvantage of being located in Canada is that the winters linger on too long. :)

Cheers,

David

Reply to This

Tuesday, April 22 2008 @ 12:21 PM PDT

Another option... - Frank_Martin

Daft, David! Your software model is certainly different than mine, but not at all in the way you assert: FUNDimensions is completely cross-platform, running machine-language compiled (versus interpreted for your product) on Mac and Windows since before your product existed. (It was Mac-only for the first couple years after inception.) I hope you develop mission-critical software more carefully than you checked facts on this point.

Ditto for customization, except that FUNDimensions' customers have the option (extensively documented) to do it themselves, avoiding your $125/hour fee to do it for them. Of course, if they want help to do this, they can take advantage of FUNDimensions' free email support, or free telephone support for 30 days from their first call. If they really prefer us to do it for them, that is available too.

And 8 years in business? That is great, David. Wow, and already up to version 1.2! So we can expect version 2 in about... 40 years, right? Might we also get a User Manual that has an index -or even a table of contents- by then? Oh, never mind, I see your download only has a "demo manual": 34 pages of your big logos, uncropped screenshots and terse callouts. It is not really worth a TOC or index.

Frank Martin

Author, FUNDimensions Fundraising Software

Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist

Reply to This

Wednesday, April 23 2008 @ 01:39 AM PDT

Another option... - David Hind Smith

Hi Frank,

Again thanks for the comments, I prefer to be a bit less vitriolic if that's OK. You can get a complete picture of our firm and resources at http://www.hind-smith.com for a full view of our capabilities. Because we've built numerous systems in a variety of industries, we have the breadth of experience over 8 years to take our Non Profit offering anywhere our clients need it to go. As an example, we're building an integrated secure web portal for one of our customers in the United States that will allow donors to securely interface with the software via a web interface. We operate a hosting facility as well, making our solution turnkey for this particular customer.

I think one of the nice things about our pricing model is that we're much more cost effective for larger organizations. As an example, I believe your pricing for 20 users is $33,699 (please correct me if I'm wrong), while our offering is only $375/month for unlimited users. Our non profit and charitable customers asked for this model in order to help with cash flow management and we responded.

We're committed to hs_NonProfit and our other offerings, and will be releasing regular upgrades over 2008 and beyond. The updated user manual is with our designer and coming out June!

Hope all is going well with your product, it looks like a solid and mature offering.

Cheers,

David

Reply to This

Wednesday, April 23 2008 @ 09:53 AM PDT

Another option... - Frank_Martin

"You can get a complete picture of our firm and resources at http://www.hind-smith.com for a full view of our capabilities."

Pal, I'm way ahead of you again. I checked that site our at the very beginning of your conversation. I get that you drive a nicer car than I do.

"I think one of the nice things about our pricing model is that we're much more cost effective for larger organizations. As an example, I believe your pricing for 20 users is $33,699 (please correct me if I'm wrong), while our offering is only $375/month for unlimited users. Our non profit and charitable customers asked for this model in order to help with cash flow management and we responded."

Smooth. Only, your price conveniently omits the expense of putting Filemaker on every machine that the customer wants to deploy with your database. With FUNDimensions, the pricing model permits licensing only for the total concurrent logins. Unlike your solution, then, customers can install the FUNDimensions client on as many computers as you like at no charge whatsoever. You don't have to enter serial numbers, or ever purchase upgrades to the client software. If your fundraising department consists of 20 people, you don't need a 20-user license, probably less than half that.

It is really ridiculous to compare the technologies just on price. The 4th Dimension database engine and language outdistance the capabilities of Filemaker by an order of magnitude. I consult on Filemaker from time to time, and I know that making anything like FUNDimensions with it would be impossible: FUNDimensions takes advantage of server-side processing, a compiled language, multithreaded execution and interface, and vastly superior GUI building tools, to mention a few advantages. Reports that would take hours or days to execute in Filemaker- if they could be done at all- can be performed in FUNDimensions on 4D in minutes. This kind of sturdy performance also reduces licensing needs, since workstations don't commonly get bogged down in long jobs they way they would with your product, so that the license is available for other users.

Beyond the underlying technology, the design and implementation are a world apart too. As an example, I looked at your product for how to sort a list of donors by their total gift amount. In FUNDimensions, this is done by:

1. Records menu > Sort.
2. Choose Gift Amount-Total from the Sort By pulldown menu.
3. Click OK.

There are dozens of ways to customize this sort, right there in the dialog window: for example, fields to enter a date range, to limit the gift dates used for the sort; and checkboxes in case the user prefers to sort just by pledges, or memberships, or donations, or any combination of these. (p. 291-2 of the User Manual)

When I looked for how to do this in your demo, it just was not there, or was hidden. I figured out how to view a list of donors, then went to the Sort menu command, and was confronted by a pulldown menu with about a hundred items, all cryptically named ("_30PRJ"). After a while, I did find a field that looked promising, "PaymtAmtTotal". But sorting on it did not re-order the list, and no message appeared telling me I had made a mistake, or advising me how to fix the problem. Some fundraisiers might have thought the sort was accomplished, and proceeded as if it had, with serious consequences for their work and their job. This is an example of an interface issue that isn't just cosmetic, but profoundly undermines the mission-critical viability of your product. It took me only a few minutes to find this dangerous mess. I am certain I could have easily found many more.

I do not see any way to enter pledges or memberships in your product, let alone tools to mange them effectively. A search of your manual for the terms memberships and pledge comes up empty. A search of the FUNDimensions manual finds lots of hits, and these items even appear in the index and table of contents, David. Click the number and you are whisked right to the page.

By the way, when this sort is performed under our client-server edition, things are done to prevent any need of moving the records over the network. With large databases this can easily save hours, even days, and this kind of optimization is really impossible with Filemaker. Plus, the multithreaded design of FUNDimensions allows users to continue working in other windows while the sort is in progress. In Filemaker, everthing is stuck in one window: a long task is the death of your session's productivity.

I guess this is part of your strategy to make money: don't upgrade your product much, then charge the living daylights out of your customers for "customizing", for things that nearly every fundraiser needs. "Supporting the heck out it", as you say, then becomes a regular opportunity to sell additional customization, e.g. when they call up asking how to enter a pledge, you sell them a custom pledge module for a couple of grand. Pretty slick. Silly me, I go weeks, often months without a support issue from anyone, and I consider that a sign of success.

Your assertion that the pricing model for your product represents an advantage for large organizations is false, or perhaps just a half-truth: what your pricing model really represents is that your product is woefully underpowered and underfeatured for larger organizations, and so is worth much less to them.

"We're committed to hs_NonProfit and our other offerings, and will be releasing regular upgrades over 2008 and beyond. The updated user manual is with our designer and coming out June!"

David, you do "RSN" really well, I can just imagine the wan smile and all. I'll really have to be on my toes to keep up with your product "juggernaut"!

Frank Martin
Author, FUNDimensions Fundraising Software
Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist

Reply to This

Thursday, April 24 2008 @ 07:51 AM PDT