MADISON, MO -- Flagship Technologies, Inc. announced today that
it has suspended sales of ManagePLUS
for QuickBooks™, the company's farm accounting add-on for Intuit's
QuickBooks accounting
software, pending a rewrite of the ManagePLUS program.
According to company president Mark Wilsdorf, the planned overall
rewrite of the core software in ManagePLUS for QuickBooks™ is on
hold indefinitely, for a number of reasons. "We originally
planned to release a major ManagePLUS update before the end of
2002." said Wilsdorf. "But the first release of Intuit's
Software Development Kit (SDK) for QuickBooks didn't give us access
to all of the QuickBooks data we needed for ManagePLUS. Version 2.0
of the QuickBooks SDK is available now, and though it provides the
data access we need, the agricultural software landscape has changed
in the mean time. Other ag companies are now working on
QuickBooks-integrated products--Flagship Technologies has provided
consulting services on at least one of these. Our knowledge of what
these other companies are planning is reshaping our ideas of what
ManagePLUS should be; what features it should offer. This has
likewise moved our goal from simply rewriting ManagePLUS with a
similar set of features, to expanding the program's
capabilities."
Wilsdorf continued, "Since its first release ManagePLUS has
primarily been a tool for reporting quantity information stored in
QuickBooks transactions, in more meaningful ways than is possible
with QuickBooks alone. One of those 'more meaningful ways' has been
to report quantity information for QuickBooks Classes, which are the
enterprise accounting feature of QuickBooks. While ManagePLUS users
have really benefited from having Class quantity reports, that
information falls short of calculating true enterprise costs and
cost-of-production analysis. We now believe a ManagePLUS rewrite
must incorporate more ambitious goals; specifically, we want
ManagePLUS to better support detailed enterprise analysis."
"This shift in our goals for ManagePLUS means the rewrite
will be more complex and will take longer to complete. But currently
our staff is deeply involved in other projects, so the rewrite won't
begin right away. In the mean time, the present ManagePLUS for
QuickBooks release has been causing us some sales and support
problems. The program's complex grid of compatibility
limitations--no support for Windows XP or Windows 2000, and support
for only certain QuickBooks versions--has been difficult to
communicate to potential users. Obviously, those limitations are
also curtailing sales."
In summing up, Wilsdorf said, "Rather than continue with the
current situation, which was likely to result in a
less-than-pleasant experience for some ManagePLUS purchasers, we
decided it was best to suspend sales of the current ManagePLUS
release. We'd rather forego revenue from ManagePLUS sales for a
while than risk damaging the good will ManagePLUS users feel toward
this product."
Other Flagship Technologies products, such as The
QuickBooks Farm Accounting Cookbook™, will continue to be
marketed as they currently are, and through the same marketing
channels.
About Flagship Technologies
Flagship Technologies, Inc., is located at Madison, Missouri. The
company's primary focus is on developing and marketing agricultural
software products, including ManagePLUS
for QuickBooks™ and ManagePLUS
for Quicken™, farm accounting add-ons for QuickBooks and
Quicken, as well as other software products and training materials.
The company can be contacted by these means:
ManagePLUS is a trademark of Flagship
Technologies, Inc. QuickBooks and Quicken are registered trademarks
of Intuit.
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