Why we selected Alpha Five over Crystal Reports and other solutions

noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Wieland) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:10:00 +0000

Why we selected Alpha Five over Crystal Reports and other solutions.
By NICHOLAS WIELAND –Alpha Five Developer and Accounting System Expert
nnw@edfi.net

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As a software solution provider, our clients need us to stay competitive and cost effective. This meant constantly reviewing the set of tools we use to provide our service. Because we specialize in Accounting, flexible and comprehensive reporting were of primary concern.

For many years our primary tools have been Crystal Reports (reporting), Dotnetnuke (website), Visual Basic (Windows Mobile Solutions) and our customers use QuickBooks Pro/Enterprise, Mas90, Navision, Macola, Exact and many other accounting packages.

In the Fall of 2007 a client asked us to build a completely web-based solution that included complex reporting. We needed to find a new software development tool – one that would let us develop the application in a single environment and do it faster than we knew our current tools would let us.
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About Alpha Five

I found Alpha Five and read reviews on it from sites like Techrepublic.com, cnet.com, Infoworld.com, and PCworld.com. The reviews looked “too good to be true”, especially regarding ultra-quick development times and other RAD features. Alpha Five has a strong developer community so we read through comments by the developers on the Alpha Software message board about the pros and cons of the product.

Our findings:

Developers really tried to help one another – good, we would need that if we adopted Alpha Five.
It seemed that Alpha Software personnel responded to bug reports/issues quickly.
It appeared that the President & CEO of the Alpha Software played an active role.

We downloaded Alpha Five version 9 and started to play with it. Being fluent with Crystal Reports and Excel, I very much liked what I saw. I asked questions on the message board and found a good consultant to work with for this specific project. In short order, I knew using Alpha Five would be a very positive step for our company.

Our decision to use Alpha Five was based on our 25 years of Accounting Software development experiences. We know what we need!

Many Accounting and Development Software Packages utilize Crystal as the report writer portion of their software. Microsoft uses it in Visual Basic and or .Net Studio software – they embed it as their reporting tool. Many Accounting Software packages provide the same e.g. Exact Software ES product allows you to update reports using Crystal as many others.

Crystal Reports is an industry standard! There are others like Swift reporting, Jet reports and Finer Edge. But they did not offer us the advantages of Alpha Five!
Alpha Five included more than just reporting:

Web Development
Intranet Database Applications
Internet Database Applications
Desktop ApplicationsAnd Reporting too!

About our Web Development skills:

We have an intimate knowledge of Webmatrix from initial attempts to build our website. We certainly know of and understand Visual Basic because of our Mobile Order Entry Solutions. Our own website uses Dotnet (dukedotnet) as the foundation for its deployment and we will soon be converted to Dukedotnet 5.1 alongside Alpha Five.

Yes, you can do anything with .ASP and other tools. In fact there are 1000’s of components to chose from (see http://www.componentsource.com/). But Alpha Five has everything built in, right at your finger tips.

Here is a Real Life Situation.

June 1st 2008 we receive a call from a MAS90 dealer whom we have been trying to Sell our Windows Mobile Solutions since 2005. The Dealer - Says “can you design a Database AND a Work Flow AND Program FINISHED BY July 15th (start of customer’s busy season). The program had to be accessed by an office in another part of the state, a Web application was the perfect solution!
Prior to this we had built two software applications using Alpha Five:

(Mfg – Available to Promise) from two separate SQL databases
10 different PSQL databases to report via one for Collections (for a Publishing Company).

Now we had to provide a turnkey, database, Intranet Solution that covers a Manufacturer Process. And we had a project that needed to be complete FAST!
When looking for a qualified Alpha Five developer, we turned to IADN (http://www.alphadevnet.com/), and found one right away (Steve Wood of AlphaToGo , http://www.alphatogo.com/).
If we had used an .ASP tool like Webmatrix, Visual Basic and or Visual Studio and SQL this project would have the following problems:

Cost would have been prohibitive.
Our deadline would have been missed
Would have required more hardware e.g. SQL Server.
Would not have been an option that would allow us to deliver on time.

The ONLY way this project could be installed was using ALPHA FIVE to create an Intranet application. BY JULY 18th we had installed this application, had it running in one of the largest Food Processing plants in Maine.

With the Help of members of IADN our company was able to complete this project, on time in budget and working 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

In Conclusion:

Our decision to get on onboard and use Alpha Five was an outstanding one and changed how our company approaches software development for the positive. Any other decision and we would not have be able to deliver in 30 days the functionality needed by a major Food Processing Facility. Our .Net skills would not be able to deliver this either.

With our skills and IADN members we created a Timely, Efficient, Cost Friendly Solution that now runs 24/7/365. Total development time was less than 30 days.

EDFI Corp’s decision to be a member of IADN is based on the ability of it’s members to get
Alpha Software Solutions Delivered. Alpha Five plus the Independent Alpha Developers Network may be the way for you too. If you have any questions please feel free to email me.

Nicholas Wieland – President EDFI Corp
August 11th 2009
nnw@edfi.net

So You're Thinking About Using Alpha Five

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:46:00 +0000

by: Steve Workings, Alpha Five Developer and Instructor
email: steve@workings.com

This little guide is for you if you're a person or company in need of a good database system. You're looking around, trying to decide which database to use. It's a big commitment after all. You'll invest a great deal of time, money and your future in that critical piece of software.

You heard about Alpha Five (and maybe wonder why you haven't heard of it before). You obviously discovered this web site. How can you learn more about Alpha Five?

First, I'm going to give you a short list of reasons why Alpha Five should be your choice. And second, I'm going to recommend other things you can do to learn more.

Why Alpha Five Smokes the Competition

- The advertising is true: You can accomplish more with Alpha Five in a shorter period of time than any other database product.

- Alpha Five has genies for the non-programmer, and powerful programming capabilities for the most demanding needs.

- Alpha Five has a more powerful programming language than Filemaker, better development tools and scalability than Access.

- Alpha Five can be your front-end to a large variety of back-end databases.

- Alpha Five's desktop tools are fantastic, and the web-development features are unmatched.

- Alpha Five's licensing model makes distribution much more affordable than its competitors' pricing and policies.

- Alpha Five is supported by an outstanding, self-supporting user/developer community.

How to Learn More
(without spending any money!)

1. Download the 30-day free trial of Alpha Five from AlphaSoftware.com. This is the full version of Alpha Five - everything is included. Start using it. For free.

2. Spend time at AlphaSoftware.com. I'll presume you already have, but the resources there are extensive, and (almost) nothing is hype; the folks at Alpha truly have a terrific product and only need the facts to support it.

3. Watch for, and take advantage of, any free on-line course that Alpha Software offers to new and prospective users. Yes, I'm the instructor, so yes, I have some vested interest in you taking the course. But it's free, it's a great jump-start, and people have give us terrific reviews. The class has been turned into a CD, available from Alpha Software, but the table of contents for both are the same. Click here to see it: https://www.alphasoftware.com/shop/alphafive/new/a5v9tt_toc.html.

4. Join the user-supported Alpha Five Message board at http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/alphaforum/index.php. Register right away: it's free, doesn't generate junk mail to you, etc. There are three things here I want you to notice:

a) The short response time between an original poster's question and a response (or two or three).

b) The quality of the responses. If you look for a while, you'll see not only some very informed and generous help from skilled users, but also from the staff and even the owners of Alpha Software.

c) The Search feature. What's important to you? Use the Search feature to see if you can learn more about it. I'll bet you can. And, if you can't, make sure you post a new question (in the correct forum) then enjoy and profit from being part of our community right away.

5. Spend some time looking around this website, sponsored by developers who want your business. You'll be impressed by who's here and what we've done for our customers. You'll begin to understand the depth and breadth of what Alpha Five can offer. Most importantly, you'll discover the experience that a professional Alpha Five developer can provide to you, if you decide that you need it.

If you finished reading this, then I know you're nearly convinced that Alpha Five may be just what you need. So make a plan to spend some time learning more, and don't let this opportunity pass you by. Those of us who have found Alpha Five for our solutions know that it can be your solution too. We're evangelistic about it, which is why I wrote this article and why I want to see you on the Alpha message board, in one of my classes, or writing your own testimonial in a couple years. Join us!

Independent Alpha Five Developers Network

Why we selected Alpha Five over Crystal Reports and other solutions

So You're Thinking About Using Alpha Five