Stardraw.com adds new web services

Stardraw.com has added two major new enhancements to its suite of design and documentation software. The first is the External Datasource feature. This latest web service provides a fast, flexible solution to the creation and maintenance of a central source for product information such as pricing and other data which is linked to Stardraw's symbols library. The second feature, called Synchronize Manufacturers, is a new delivery mechanism for Stardraw's regular monthly symbols updates.

According to Stardraw CEO David Snipp, these are significant developments for a number of reasons. “With the recent implementation of SQL Server 2000 across our servers we have enormously powerful database functionality that has enabled us to deliver database-driven solutions to our customers far more quickly and easily than was previously possible. We now have a central repository in database format of all of the data within Stardraw which we can distribute to customers' local machines according to parameters defined by them. The strategic implications of such technology are enormous.”

Marketing director Rob Robinson agrees. “It improves efficiency enormously. For example, the External Datasource feature creates an Excel spreadsheet that is populated with the manufacturers' products that you use. This spreadsheet is stored locally on your machine and can be edited to set the attribute values of your choosing (such as “cost price”, “sale price” etc.) From now on, every time you drag a product symbol into a drawing, the attributes from your spreadsheet will be imported into that symbol automatically. The beauty of this system is that you can enter all the data for all of your products into just one spreadsheet rather than having to edit individual program files; you only have to add the information once, although of course it can be edited as often as you like; and you don't even have to know how to use Stardraw in order to add or edit information on the spreadsheet – anyone with a basic knowledge of Excel can do it.”

“Synchronize Manufacturers is another database-driven web service which replaces the old monthly file download of symbols updates,” continued Robinson. “and is advantageous because you can be selective about the data you receive. Stardraw applications are victims of their own success: take Stardraw A/V for example - on average, any one user will be interested in about 10% of the 190 manufacturers and 32,500 symbols available. It therefore follows that, on average, 90% of any monthly download is not of interest to any one 'average' user. Synchronize Manufacturers does exactly what it says - it will deliver any changes to the symbol library, and ignore any unchanged symbols, for the Manufacturers you want. It is an extremely powerful tool that avoids lengthy downloads of potentially irrelevant data and allows the customer to create a local symbols library according to his own preferences.”

For further information on Stardraw.com and the Feature-per-Month program, please visit www.stardraw.com
 

Notes to Editor

Since 1995 Stardraw.com has been a leading provider of software solutions to the entertainment technology sector, offering a range of award-winning system design, documentation and control applications as well as providing OEM software solutions for corporate customers. With offices in London and New York, regional partners and an installed customer base of almost 30,000 users spanning 82 countries, Stardraw.com is focussed on serving the international marketplace, and delivers leading-edge solutions that exploit the very latest in software technologies.

For more information contact:		Press contact:
Rob Robinson, Stardraw.com Ltd. 78 York Street London, W1H 1DP England T: +44 (0)207 692 7117 F: +44 (0)207 692 7118 e: rob.robinson@stardraw.com		Kiera Leeming, KLPR Ltd. T: +33 (0)684 06 26 42 e: kiera@klpr.co.uk