Snow!
We all can connect this white fluffy frozen crystal of water with the winter! For me, the first signs of snow in late November or early December are exciting. The beauty of clean snow blanketing the landscape brings me joy knowing holidays will follow, a new year will be upon us and, if you’re lucky enough, your football team will be in the Super Bowl. As I write this, I can see the piles of snow outside my window that are 2+ feet high (we received, in a single storm, 3+ feet of snow and multiple smaller storms afterward so far this year). The holidays have passed, we are already about 12% done with 2021, and the JETS have let me down again!
Behind the scenes here at ADD Systems, I’m happy to announce that we’ve been working hard and continue to be very, very busy. In 2020, we added 10 new ADD family members to our organization, and in 2021 we’ve already added 3 to the team. In total, in the last 24 months we’ve added 30 new employees and we currently have some dialogue underway with a few more potential hires! On the flip side, we experienced some retirements in 2020. We had to say good bye to Dottie Marotta, Richard Kuzniar, Scott Johnson, and James Alexander. We even experienced the sad and unexpected passing of Sue Gampp in June. We will miss them all dearly.
In late June of 2020, we announced the new browser-based ADD Energy E360™ product. I am happy to report that we have put the product into the field and have a few other clients currently scheduled to deploy this innovative application in the coming days/weeks. We’ve also completed the migration of ADD Energy E3® to Microsoft SQL Server and it too is in the field. While the existing SAP-ASE database is still the ADD preferred choice and embedded in the products, the option to use Microsoft SQL Server now gives our clients a choice of two powerful databases. This is all in addition to our standard dose of exciting enhancements the development team has designed and programmed. We were able to add some 350 significant enhancements to the package in 2020 alone!
Our other products also saw significant development. ADD eStore® and Atlas BI® saw 3 major releases and 17 minor releases in 2020. These releases brought hundreds of enhancements to the product. Most notable was the integration of the NEW “Skip Frictionless Checkout” using a mobile device and the port to an even more versatile store scanner (Unitech EA 630). Raven and Pegasus have seen hundreds of enhancements in 2020 as well. I could go on and on about each product and the additions of new features and functionality. The key here is that all of our products have benefited from significant R&D investment to keep them cutting edge and ahead of the competition.
In the first seven weeks of 2020 we welcomed 7 NEW clients to the ADD Systems family. COVID-19 slowed the pace somewhat over the next few months, but we still completed 2020 with a dozen new clients! We did not stop there! We upgraded 60 clients to the current release of the software and helped with many conversion activities for clients who were still incredibly active with mergers and acquisitions in our ever changing marketplace.
Overall a very, very busy 2020! In 2021, I hope to return to something closer to what we all would refer to as Pre-COVID conditions. I’m optimistic that I will be able to restore a more regular routine of meeting clients face-to-face, without the use of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, etc.…
It’s exciting to be able to reflect on our accomplishments. My opening statements about snow and the excitement and joy of winter are symbolic because I know every year it snows (just how much snow should fall is always variable) and every year winter is followed by spring. Every year, we work hard to provide you the very best software and every spring we get the opportunity to deliver on the exciting things we’ve been working on all year long. This brings me the same joy and excitement for the remainder of the year!
Thank you for your business and my warmest of regards!
Bruce C. Bott
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