Genii Weblog
How stable and reliable is Genii Software?
Fri 22 May 2009, 10:20 AM
Tweetby Ben Langhinrichs
How stable and reliable is Genii Software?
Part 3 of series on iFidelity: Weighing the value proposition
While this is an easier question to answer than the last, it is difficult for me to say because it feels immodest. Genii Software has been around since 1994, and a business partner with IBM since 1995. Our first product, the @YourCommand Toolkit, came out in 1995, followed in 1997 by our best known product, the Midas Rich Text LSX, which has been licensed to over one and a half million users (the much maligned "seat count" that IBM and Microsoft love to both boast about and disparage). Since then, we have brought out the other Midas products (of which the Midas Rich Text C++ API remains), CoexEdit and CoexLinks.
In terms of stability, we support these products across a great span of Notes/Domino versions, thus ensuring that customer needs can be met no matter where they have landed in the Notes/Domino world. All our current products are supported from R5 to ND8.5, and most would work with R4 if a customer came along who needed it. We may be small, but have outlasted many larger companies and have an infrastructure that allows for growth or constriction without threat to the company. It is perhaps indicative of our stability that the vast majority of our sales come through word-of-mouth, and yet we have grown virtually every year since we started. Customers know us, tell others about us, and come back to see what new products we might have to offer.
Reliability is a harder thing to measure. I am aware of customers who rave about us, and a few who rave at us. It is perhaps a better measure that with the number of licensed users we have, with customers in 7 of the Fortune 10 companies, for example, with customers in 47 countries using our products in almost that many languages, we get very few support calls, and most are resolved within a matter of hours. Occasionally serious issues develop, which happens with all software partly due to the ever-changing landscape of accessory hardware and software products installed along with Notes/Domino and partly due to the ever-changing Notes/Domino products themselves and partly due to actual defects. When that happens, we work hard to be prompt and courteous in our resolution of the issues. When the support load seemed to be increasing, and more of it was needed in Europe and Asia, we contracted with The Turtle Partnership to provide most of our support, as they are larger and have more flexibility in terms of resources.
Still, the best way to be sure is to ask around. It should not be hard to find people at IBM or in the general Notes/Domino community who will vouch for our stability and reliability. Those recommendations mean far more to us than a glossy brochure filled with empty promises. I am sure that if you have an old Lotusphere bag around, you can still find those brochures and promises from a number of companies who were formed after Genii Software and who have now disappeared into the mists of time.
Copyright © 2009 Genii Software Ltd.
What has been said:
816.1. Doug Finner (05/23/2009 08:34 PM)
We're a small shop (4 servers, 300 users, one site) and only use Coex!Links. GREAT application. When we were frog marched from Notes mail to Exchange/Outlook, Coex allowed our mail enabled Notes apps to keep sending working doc links via the Coex generated NDL files without needing to rewrite everything to either build NDL files or switch to sending domino urls.
The process was soooooo complicated.
Step 1. Install
Step 2. There is no step 2...the thing cranks up and just works. We have never had a problem.
Go ahead...pat yourself on the back; you've earned it!