Diversified Data Systems, Inc.

E-Mail Newsletter

August 27, 2003

Volume 17, Number 1

Thanks for helping to make NCSL in Tampa such a success this year!

Failure of a Highflier...

"Life Boat" Offer to Norfox Users

DDS is offering, for a limited time, a special "life boat" package to allow Norfox users to convert to OpenMETRIC for absolutely minimal costs.

Mr. Don Wyatt, President of Diversified Data Systems, explained that "even though we've been at this for over 33 years, the failure of a highflier like Norfox causes concerns and ripples throughout our industry.  We want to do our part to help customers through this crisis and to contribute to the re-establishment of health and productivity for metrology."

For customers that have already purchased LabMate or Visual LabMate, we are offering a discount of 50% off the license fee for OpenMETRIC and data conversion for FREE.

Mr. Wyatt noted that "OpenMETRIC is functionally and technologically superior to LabMate and Visual LabMate, so Norfox customers have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

Mr. Wyatt added that "we obviously cannot handle the conversion of all Norfox customers at the same time, so this will be strictly a 'first come, first served' conversion opportunity."

Finally, Mr. Wyatt explained that "Norfox customers are also welcome to take advantage of our unique Subscription service for OpenMETRIC [see www.dds-inc.com/Products/SubscriptionRates.htm] which begins from only $851 per month and includes training and software support. For a limited time, we'll throw in the data conversion for free to existing Norfox customers."

To take advantage of these unique opportunities, contact us by phone at (520) 792-3250, by email at admin@dds-inc.com, or through the Contact Us pages on our web site at www.dds-inc.com/ContactUs/ContactUs.htm.

Additional Norfox Background

One of the biggest surprises at the NCSL International Conference in Tampa was the collapse of Norfox.  Norfox was a major supplier of calibration data management software (LabMate, Visual LabMate, etc.).

In April, 2003, Norfox entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  In May, 2003, Norfox was placed into Chapter 7 liquidation.

This unfortunate situation leaves the future of Norfox customers uncertain.

Some customers have already purchased the source to Norfox products and intend to maintain the products themselves.  Many of these same customers turned to Norfox within the last few years to escape the burden of maintaining their own calibration software.

Other customers plan to "sit tight," hoping that their Norfox software will continue to operate correctly until the software assets of Norfox are liquidated and the new "owner" emerges.

It is by no means certain that a company will step forward to purchase the software assets of Norfox or that the bankruptcy court will accept an offer that will permit the viable continuation of support for Norfox software.

Norfox claims to have 150 customers and claims to have invested $5 million in the development of the software assets currently being liquidated.

The booth in Tampa, reserved by Norfox before the collapse, was manned by Norvada, a new company, which includes several key personnel from Norfox.  The rights of Norvada to sell or support Norfox software, however, is extended by the bankruptcy court on a 30-day renewal basis and will be revoked as soon as the Norfox assets are liquidated.

Diversified Data Systems, Inc.

2601 N. Fairview Avenue

Tucson, AZ  85705

Phone:

(520) 792-3250

Fax:

(520) 623-6565

E-mail:

admin@dds-inc.com

We’re on the Web!

www.dds-inc.com

OpenMETRIC V. 5.1 Released

DDS is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Version 5.1 of OpenMETRIC, OpenEMBARC, and OpenPROTRAK.

DDS is pleased to announce the immediate availability of professionally printed and bound User Manuals for OpenMETRIC and OpenEMBARC (Version 5.1).

Review the Table of Contents and other information about these manuals at the Bookstore on our web site at www.dds-inc.com/Products/Bookstore.htm.

If interested, contact us for a password to our aisle at our publisher's web site.

New Palm OS Initiatives

At NCSL in Tampa, we demonstrated several preliminary product initiatives on the Palm Tungsten-C which will extend OpenMETRIC even further into the realm of mobile, wireless computing.

Coupled with the Symbol Technologies CS-1504 keychain bar code scanner, the Palm PDA becomes a powerful tool for updating physical locations of equipment, updating the status of Work in Process, and for actually capturing calibration data (via newly announced PalmMETRIC).