All of us here at Stardraw.com would like to wish you a happy New
Year and a profitable 2004. We realize that you have many
demands on your time, and you will have a lot of information to work
through following the holiday season, but we hope you will be able
to look through our 2003 retrospective - it has been a remarkable
year and even we are surprised at how many significant events,
advances and changes the past 12 months have delivered.
2003 - A Prime Year
At this time of year it's always tempting to
comment on the broader issues facing us all, but we are
resisting that temptation to concentrate on what we know best -
namely the quest to deliver better, faster, more efficient tools for
the users of both off-the-shelf and customized Stardraw
applications. In this respect our development team excelled
throughout 2003 adding important new features including:
Online Libraries, giving users access to a live centralised
symbols database via the Internet
Search, because Stardraw is a victim of its own success; with
tens of thousands of symbols available, finding the product you
wanted was becoming a task in itself!
Convert Environments, a great labor-saver which allows you to
create one kind of design, e.g. a sales presentation, from another,
e.g. a schematic design.
External Datasource, which makes child's play of the
management of centralized data like product pricing.
Synchronize Manufacturers, which allows you to specify the
libraries that interest you and update them online as part of the
LiveUpdate process.
And these are just a few of the new features
available for free to all current subscribers. A
characteristic that unites the listed features is the emphasis on
exploitation of data from different sources, whether it's an online
database, a local document, or a third party application - with
every new feature Stardraw has extended its reach as a platform for
the integration of information. This trend will continue in
2004 and beyond.
Another example of information integration can
be found in Stardraw Weblink - the new service that allows
manufacturers to link product data in Stardraw to any external
information. This can be as simple as a link to a web-page or
document, making product datasheets available directly through your
drawing, or as sophisticated as retrieving information from a live
database, using parameters to tailor that data to specific
requirements. We looking forward to announcing new enrolments into
the Weblink program early in the new year.
2003 saw the establishment of key strategic
partnerships which pave the way for delivery of Stardraw-based
systems to new user groups in both established and new markets; VTG
Corporation chose Stardraw to develop Net CAD - their online panel
design application to be rolled out through daughter companies Rapco
and Horizon Music in Q1 2004. Meanwhile, acoustical modelling
specialist Acoustic Design Ahnert (ADA) and its sister company
Software Design Ahnert (SDA) have announced a strategic partnership
which will offer their customers an interface between Stardraw's
design and documentation applications and the acoustical modelling
software EASE (Enhanced Acoustic Simulator for Engineers). We
have also been pleased to welcome many new participants in the
Stardraw Affiliate Program and the Stardraw.net Silver Partner
Program.
It hasn't all been headline-grabbing stuff,
however, but obviously the higher-profile announcements are backed
up with huge amount of behind-the-scenes activity. In November
we unveiled the new Stardraw.com website - this involved the
deployment of new racks of dedicated servers in Seattle, USA
and London, UK offering replicated services and ensuring 24/7 uptime
and optimized global access times. The project also included a
total re-design of the website's appearance and structure, and added
new back-office functionality which is required for new web services
being launched in 2004.
These are a few of the highlights of the past 12
months, and just as we've begun to draw breath, 2004 already looks
to be the year that eclipses all that have gone before. We'd
like to thank all our friends for helping us to report another year
of growth - and we wish peace and prosperity to all for 2004!
Feature per Month program
This month's new feature is Time Summary Report:
this new report template consolidates the three default attributes
used to cost project activities, namely Design Time, Installation
Time and Management Time, to produce a single report on time-based
costs.
You can get this important new feature at no cost if you have a
current subscription for your Stardraw product. Follow a LiveUpdate
link to install this feature.
Important Note: the Feature per Month program is
available only to current subscribers of Stardraw Audio, Stardraw AV,
Stardraw Lighting 2D and Stardraw Radio, and is delivered using LiveUpdate.
If the machine you're currently working with has its Stardraw dongle in place,
follow the link to check your subscription status.
Save and Win at ISEurope
In conjunction with the organizers of ISEurope, Stardraw.com is pleased to offer
free registration (saving you €100) and the chance to win a full
version of Stardraw A/V worth €2,500. Simply follow the link below and enter the
special code "14455". Then visit the Stardraw.com booth #6454
to be eligible to win your copy of Stardraw A/V. The prize draw will take
place on February 4th.
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Enter code "14455" to qualify |
Symbol Updates - An Announcement
Stardraw applications offer the largest, highest quality industry-specific
symbols libraries available anywhere, and for the last 4 years fixed quantities
of new product symbols have been released as regular monthly file downloads. Using this approach,
approximately 9,000 new symbols were introduced in 2003 alone; that's pretty impressive,
but we have decided we can do even better.
The improvements in our delivery of new product symbols are entirely focussed
on responding to what you, the user, wants. If you want a symbol, you deserve to
have it immediately; you shouldn't have to wait until the end of the month - that
might be too late! This is why we have set a target of a 48 hour turnaround for symbols
requests made online.
The second improvement is based on choice; as a systems designer / integrator you
will have a set of preferred manufacturers, your regular suppliers. The introduction
last month of the Synchronize Manufacturers utility means that you can now download
changes to you personal list of chosen manufacturers, all as part of the LiveUpdate
process. This way of delivering symbol updates is far more efficient than the monthly
file download which would include ALL new symbols for ALL manufacturers, regardless of
whether you were likely to use them. A further advantage is that any chosen manufacturer is brought fully up to date in a
single action (previously it would be necessary to download every monthly update that
included the manufacturer to get the full library). With Synchronize Manufacturers, keeping your
custom list of preferred manufacturers up to date is faster, seamless and effortless.
A third improvement focuses on communications; part of our recent website re-design
put in place new capabilities for making, tracking and responding to symbols requests. You
can now make requests by manufacturer, vote for other people's requests, receive
notification as soon as your requested symbols have been published, and much more.
The key difference you will notice, other than improved responsiveness, speed and efficiency,
is that you no longer need to download large monthly update files. In fact these have been
removed from the Stardraw website to make navigation easier - all program and symbol updates are
now delivered exclusively through the Stardraw LiveUpdate as a single process.
Upcoming Events
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Show: |
Theater Fair |
Venue: |
The Hague, Netherlands |
Dates: |
January 26-28 |
Stand #: |
205 |
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Show: |
ISE |
Venue: |
Geneva, Switzerland |
Dates: |
February 3-5 |
Stand #: |
6454 |
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Show: |
PALME |
Venue: |
Dubai, UAE |
Dates: |
February 17-19 |
Stand #: |
tbc |
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Show: |
NSCA |
Venue: |
Las Vegas, NV, USA |
Dates: |
March 19-21 |
Stand #: |
3115 |
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Symbols Updates
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