Month: February 2010

Credenza, Houdini, AdvologixPM, RocketMatter, Clio, TimeMatters 10 & Amicus 2010

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Wow!!!!! The marketplace for practice management software has exploded this year.  They must have added something to the water that programmers drink (they do drink , don’t they?).

Well, yesterday, Gavel & Gown released Credenza (Click for more info).  Now you can have your Outlook and your case management; no synchronization, no exchange.  Rather, you now have FILES within Outlook.  A $9.95/month subscription is the cost.

Meanwhile, I am currently reviewing HoudiESQ. This system is a web-based practice management system designed by Frank Rivera (who architected Time Matters World Edition). It is offered on either a SAAS (Software as Service) or self-hosted basis. What is different is that it entirely redesigns and rethinks the interface for a practice management system.  Stay tuned for my review in Technolawyer later this month.

Not to be outdone, LexisNexis has released Time Matters 10 (on an all-SQL platform).  Apart from major improvements in stability and access speed, the system includes Desktop Extensions.  These widgets give you a window into Time Matters on your desktop and could change entirely the way you work with your practice management system.

Gavel & Gown, with the release of Amicus 2010 Premium Edition, has produced a solid, stable product.  While continuing its focus on “separate offices”, the Premium Edition, centralizes the data on a single SQL Server (full SQL Server 2008 Standard is included with the license) and added extensive customization in the form of custom pages and custom records.

On the SAAS front, RocketMatters, Clio and newcomer AdvologixPM are coming into their own.  Each have been progressively adding features to fill out the requirements of a robust practice management system.  Clio and RocketMatter have expanded their billing and trust accounting features. AdvologixPM, with its support for extensive customization, has released a new document automation module that lets you launch full document packages, populated with data from the Force.com platform.

So what is going on?  For several years nothing happened in Practice Management.  Many vendors “treaded water”.  Some vendors exited.  Few new players entered the market.  And existing products pretty much stayed the same. There was no excitement, no ferment.  Something is clearly happening.  And it may not be good for established vendors unless they respond to the new environment and try to generate buzz and excitement about their products.  The SAAS products are looking at a complete redesign of the way practice management is done (anywhere, anytime, any platform) that reflects the new business reality.  The SAAS products also are looking at entirely new interfaces and windows into your practice data.

How can the SAAS developers do it?  There are two answers.  First, the SAAS developers control the software and the hardware.  In a hosted environment, the developer can make instant improvements.  There is no need to wait for the “long-tail” of users to upgrade; no need to support multiple platforms, legacy software and legacy hardware.  The host is the platform.  And that makes the SAAS developers much more nimble.

The second reason, perhaps, is more significant.  And that is the pricing model.  SAAS is “cheap” on the start-up, and expensive in the long run.  It is very easy and cheap to get started with Credenza, RocketMatter, Clio and AdvologixPM.  Once you have signed on, you will keep paying so long as you use the platform.  That means that there will be ever-increasing revenue for the SAAS developer so long as it continues to innovate; with the more innovation leading to more sales, and further increases in revenue. This is a “win-win” situation.  The SAAS developer wins by the “monthly” vote by the end-user paying their fee.  The user wins by having that vote courted with constant innovation.  By contrast, the up-front software sale with nominal maintenance produces a “disincentive” to constant innovation; once you reach market saturation in your segment, the revenue actually decreases.

Despite the groans from the current users, LexisNexis has got it right with its new AMP or annual maintenance plan.  In doing so, they follow the example of PC Law and STI/Tabs.  The hope is that LexisNexis uses this annualized revenue and maintenance to “innovate and improve” the product steadily and attract new users, rather than simply extract the profits from its existing user base.  It is this transition to software as a service (whether on a desktop or in the cloud) that represents the future of practice management.

Dcoument Assembly on the Move – Contract Express

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I have never been more optimistic about the future of document assembly than today. After years of retrenchment and stagnation, the market is full of new energy and ferment.  HotDocs is under new management, but it is not clear what direction it will be taking.  On the desktop, XpressDox has been launched by key developers formerly of Korbitec, developers of GhostFill. At $150/user, a free full-functioning trial downloads, a full powered syntax markup that requires NO component file and automatically determines relevance, there is some real new energy on the desktop level.

Read moreDcoument Assembly on the Move – Contract Express

Sales vs Consulting – The Cost of Independence

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What is the role of the “independent consultant”?  And should the “independent consultant” be allowed to benefit from a “sale” based on his/her independent recommendation?  Software vendors with “reseller” programs have always wanted a “free sales force” of consultants who offer their software “exclusively”; no salary, no benefits, no costs. These consultants are “paid” by the vendor in the form of commissions on sales (often narrowly defined) or referral fees and access to NFR copies of the software.  And yet, the questions arises, when one vendor demands exclusivity, what is the “price” for independence.  This article looks at the price and the benefits of an in independent non-exclusive consulting program to clients.  Some of the arguments are obvious, but they bear restating.

Read moreSales vs Consulting – The Cost of Independence

Demise of D3 – Custom Tags vs. Markup Language

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D3 from Microsystems has flown under the radar for years.  I mentioned it in a Technolawyer review of document assembly products several years ago.  It was a powerful “clause-based” system that enabled and integrated well with advanced Microsoft products, included Exchange Server and SQL Server.  It was sold by Microsystems out of Chicago and was popular with large firms looking to extend the power of macro-suite products without leaving the Microsoft environment.  The product was in fact embedded in a task panel in Microsoft Word.  Well, as you can see in the release below, copied from the Microsystems web-site, a recent change in MS Word has rendered the product inoperable, and Microsystems is withdrawing D3 from the market.  The reason, custom XML tags that a recent Microsoft product change (required by an anti-trust settlement with the European Union regulators) removed from the product, on which D3 depends.  This is not the first time that changed by a word-processing vendor caused document assembly products to “die”.  WordPerfect was notorious in earlier versions from regularly updating its macro language, rending macro-based suites based on one version inoperable on upgrade.

Microsoft Removes Custom XML Code from Office: D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus Discontinued

Downers Grove, IL – January 27, 2010 Microsystems announced it will discontinue development of D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus as a result of Microsoft’s decision to remove Custom XML code from Office. Microsoft made this decision following the ruling from the i4i infringement lawsuit.  DocXtools, Microsystems’ core product, is not affected by this decision.

Although D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus offered distinct competitive advantages and benefited from strong client demand and adoption, a significant portion of the functionality in both products was rendered inoperable in versions of Microsoft Office sold after January 10, 2010.

Microsystems evaluated various alternatives including redeveloping both products, but determined a feature equivalency could not be attained with the technologies and methodologies available today and the development work would likely result in an overall inferior solution for customers. In addition, it would require that little if any resources could be used to focus on our core product, DocXtools. Furthermore, no acceptable transition between existing D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus solutions and any new technology exists. This result would have imposed considerable migration issues on our customers.

Last year, DocXtools accounted for over 85% of Microsystems revenue. In contrast, licenses of D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus accounted for approximately 10% of revenue. As a result of these changes, development, sales and support staff related to D3 and Legal TemplatesPlus were reduced. Moving forward, DocXtools is supported by 45 people; 35 of those positions are comprised of development, support and document experts.

“Certainly we are disappointed about the difficult decision we had to make, but we are also energized by the ongoing success of DocXtools, a product that has been in the market for 11 years. In 2009, we added many new DocXtools customers and 93 customers entered into new or extended license agreements. In 2010 we expect to continue to grow our 249 firm install base as more organizations strive to improve efficiency and client service by deploying new DocXtools functionality out to lawyers and secretaries.” said Tom O’Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer.

The lesson and one to bear in mind:  close integration and embedding of a product into a word-processor, can have major consequences when the word-processing vendor “upgrades” or in the case of “D3” downgrades.  Far superior is the use of an interpreted markup language that is independent of the wordprocessor that is run through a document assembly engine that sits OUTSIDE the wordprocessor.  Exari, DealBuilder/Contract Express, GhostFill, DocXpress and HotDocs use such a markup approach. They can work with Word documents, as well as RTF documents.  Their approaches all differ in how they manage and store the component data.  But they all share the fact that they are NOT dependent on any particular version of the word processor and thus not subject to sudden obsolescence.