Inside Solomon Software - An Outsider's Enlightened Perspective
I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days with executives and visited the product management team at of one of the industry-leading business software vendors - Solomon Software, Inc. headquartered in Findlay, OH on September 1 and 2. My visit was prompted by a desire to get caught up with the most recent inside news at Solomon, and to learn more about the latest technology developments. in the exciting business software industry.
While in Findlay, I was thoroughly briefed on the upcoming Solomon IV Version 4.3 (currently scheduled for release in December) which will include such new capabilities as service orders, fully integrated project management with time and billing, multi-company accounting and sophisticated centralized cash processing.
My overall assessment of Solomon? This is NOT "your father's Solomon Software". Indeed, many things have changed at the 19-year old software industry veteran. They expanded their offerings way beyond their core accounting and financial applications, to include project management, distribution, manufacturing, service management, systems management and e-business applications - all written in Microsoft Visual Basic, all optimized for Microsoft SQL Server and Windows NT. Solomon's recent move to an all "Microsoft-centric" is the way Solomon hopes to ensure standardization, integration, and scalability.
What hasn't changed at Solomon? Their mission, target market, and method of distributing software haven't changed. Solomon's mission is to continually increase productivity of small and mid-sized businesses by offering them flexible business software that will help them solve problems and get their work done - faster. And they only sell their software through trained, authorized resellers - helping to ensure quality customer installations worldwide.
In addition to their financial applications, I was impressed with Solomon's Project Series, which could be a solution for anyone billing time and/or doing job accounting including: contractors, architects, engineers and consultants and job shop manufacturers. This application enables you to control internal costs as well as revenues and expenses associated with projects. With the sophistication of the SQL database that Solomon offers (Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 is embedded inside Solomon IV), you can require certain information like a project code and person's name at transaction entry or be given alerts on items like insurance expiration dates and budget overruns.
Project management and cost control is a very hot area for software today and the Solomon solution is very powerful and highly integrated with the core financial applications. One cannot help but be impressed with the broad range of applications that are currently offered along with the latest technological enhancements. For example, the Web Manager allows Solomon IV users to access any Solomon report via the Web without having Solomon actually installed on their computer.
Another Solomon IV application I previewed was the integrated mobile, dispatch and accounting software solution for field service professionals. This software automates the processes of people who work in the field and offers many setup options on tracking revenues and expenses - very impressive!
Bottom-line Impressions:
Solomon Software continues its tradition of being a solid innovator and major contributor to the productivity of small and mid-sized businesses worldwide by offering some of the most flexible software around.
Editor's Note:
In the most recent issue of our CTS ExperTalk survey, Solomon didn't fare well. After some personal research I can now say that many of the comments and opinions solicited were from customers, VARs and consultants who used older versions of Solomon prior to Solomon IV 4.x on SQL Server 7.0. At the same time, it should also be stated that some customers of the older versions are still holding off on upgrading to the newer version pending the release of additional application conversion programs and more user experience with the newer version.