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Welcome ! Welcome to the 12th issue of the Distribution TechNews. I have been most of the month abroad, in some very interesting activities, and would like to share with you a number of events that happened and applications I've seen during this month.
I hope you enjoy.
Helio
COMDEX BRAZIL: Magic was there Magic Software Brasil, our Brazilian distributor, decided this year to participate of COMDEX Brazil and check the influence that this fair can have on their business. COMDEX is the largest IT fair in Latin America. It is affiliated to COMDEX USA, and it is held once every year, usually in the Brazilian winter months of July or August. According to last year's statistics, it has had a public of between 50-60 thousand visitors, and was responsible for IT business of around 2 Billion Reais (approx. 667 Million US Dollars).
Planning the participation from last year, the Brazilian distributor decided to go for a large booth, with an area of 78 sq. meters, and not only have the Magic technologies there, but also open their space to not less that 10 MSPs from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, who came to present their applications and find new business contacts in the fair. These are the MSPs that were present:
- Abyz, presenting the ERP CIGAM
- Pacific Systems, presenting their Production Floor solution
- DAS presenting Autoplus, their Dealer Management System
- TWA Systems, presenting their many solutions
- Prodaly Systems, presenting their Patrimonial Management and Accounting solutions
- Ponto de Apoio, presenting their Shop Management, Construction Project Management, and Quality (ISO 9000) Management solutions- From Uruguay, we had the participation of Magic Software Uruguay, our local representative, and two additional MSPs:
. SECNET, who presented their eLearning Magic-based application, and their Corporate Radio application, which is also Magic based. Secnet was present with two people, their Director Jose Prieto (in the picture) and their R&D Manager Ernesto Mechoso.
. Datasur, presenting their Mobile Distribution and Sales Management solution, based in Magic.
- Additionally, we had our representative in Argentina MSA presenting their Cinema and Theater Ticketing solution.I was also at the fair, showing MSE's support to our distributor in such an important event.
The result of the fair was impressive. Magic Brasil left COMDEX with approximately 160 qualified leads. The MSPs that were partners in the event made a very good number of presentations every day, and I am sure they left the fair with a very representative number of leads.
Additionally, the fair brought leveraged relationships between different MSPs. "A number of cooperation agreements between them were begun, and we expect to see the results of these relationships in the continuation" says Rodney Repullo, Managing Director of Magic Software Brazil.
"The participation in this fair and the decision to bring the MSPs together with us to the fair comes in line with what we see as our role as a distributor of Magic Software for Brazil" - adds Rodney - "and is very important for seeding the Magic culture in Brazil and enhancing the Magic MSP community. This community is in deep need of this kind of personal contact in order to grow. Brazil has a very vast territory, and only in events like this we can promote cooperation between different MSPs from different regions."
You will see in the pictures in the continuation some pictures of things that happened during the fair:
View of the booth
View of the booth from across
The action, from outside the booth...
...and from the inside.
Abyz was showing their CIGAM ERP, and Pacific their Production Floor solution
Prodaly showed their management solutions, and Ponto de Apoio presented solutions for construction and quality.
TWA - business management solution, and tailored projects
... and DAS with their Autoplus, a car reseller logistics solution.
A conversasion and some updates from our Uruguayan partners. From the left: Oscar Zerpa (MSU), myself, Gabriel Bayב (Datasur), Jose Prieto and Ernesto Mechoso (both from SECNET).
A final picture of (part of) the team that was presenting in the boothIn my personal point of view, COMDEX Brazil was a very valid experience from the point of the distributor. It has created new leads for all partners present in the fair, created cooperation between the different partners, and increased the confidence in Magic from part of the Brazilian customers that were stunned to see the beautiful booth in the fair. I quite believe it has also engraved the name Magic in the minds of some visitors that have not stopped for talking to us in the fair, but have already doubled the download volume from our Web site during the last weeks.
The fact that we had a team of 10 MSPs in place was not only important to generate business for the MSPs, but also to prove to visitors in the booth that they will not be alone if they take the step into the Magic technology. The MSPs were a living proof to whoever wanted to see that the technology is feasible and able to bring high-quality solutions to virtually any vertical market.
As a representative of Magic Software in the place, I was happy and proud to see such a good initiative from the part of the distributor. I was happy to see the results... and surely I was happy to meet a good number of well-known customers and friends who came to visit the booth and give their prestige to the Brazilian distributor, showing to everyone in the fair that Magic is in Brazil to stay.
I am already waiting for next year's COMDEX...
Application: iRadio Another application among the interesting Magic Applications that I have seen in COMDEX Brazil was iRadio, from our Uruguayan MSP SECNET. SECNET was present in COMDEX Brazil presenting 2 applications, one of them SUITE-EDUCAS, their eLearning solution, and iRadio, a full-blown solution for a Corporate Radio Station.
I am leaving SUITE-EDUCAS, a larger application, for the next nesletter. Today you will learn a little about iRadio.
iRadio is a complete solution for managing, planning and broadcasting a Corporate radio Station. And all using Web Pages.
As we can see in the picture above, the manager of the radio station can prepare the daily program of news, ads, corporate messages, and prepare special events and playlists.
Users in the corporation which have a computer connected to the corporate network can connect to the site and listen to the radio throughout the day. Additionally, they will be able to receive corporate relevant information from the screen of the player according to the manager's planning.
iRadio is compatible with the two major standards of streaming radio, Windows Media and Real Player, and can become the standard player for any corporation.
And it is built in Magic eDeveloper... could you believe it?
iRadio is already in Spanish and Portuguese. Translation to English is a question of changing HTML files only, and is just a question of finding the first customer which will need an English version.
You can get additional details on iRadio and other applications by SECNET from their Web Site.
SECNET is looking for MSPs in other countries who would be interested in representing their solutions.
New Technical Note Magic Software's International Technical Services department has released a new Technical Note with a link to the download of the new Samples Package for version 9.4 SP1. All Magic developers interested to learn a little more about version 9.4 SP1 and its abilities should take a look at this technical note and download the samples package.
The technical note can be found on this link.
Universidad del Norte, in Monterrey - The first Mexican University to teach Magic eDeveloper ROCA Sistemas, our Mexican distributor, signed an agreement in the last weeks of August with Universidad del Norte in Monterrey that makes this university the first university in Mexico to teach Magic eDeveloper. The agreement is part of a great effort being done by the Mexican distributor to seed the Magic culture in the country and to create Magic-programming work-force in Mexico.
As for the current situation, the staff at the university is ready to begin: licenses are installed and by December we should have the first Magic students coming out of their benches.
The interesting part: every student will have to do a project in Magic eDeveloper. Projects are set according to the needs of local companies/corporations. After the project, the student can be employed by the company, and the project could be deployed with the purchase of Magic Runtimes/App. Server from ROCA.
We expect that the arrangement above will not only increase the number of Magic professionals in the market, but also increase the number of companies using Magic in the area of Monterrey, a good opportunity for the two MSPs that do business in that area.
The agreement between ROCA and the University, signed days before I arrived to Mexico, is receiving a lot of spotlights in the local media. Here are some pictures of the signature day:
The Magic banner seen from the whole parking lot
The signing cerimony. In the right, Rogelio Calzada Trujillo, Managing Director of ROCA Sistemas.
The "presentation" of the agreement to the press
Another nice application from Brazil - Bus transfer station management In issue number 9 of the newsletter I talked about three projects from the Brazilian distributor with an MSP and the Sao Paulo municipality. The projects were the "Tigrao", the Intelligent Train Stations, and the Intelligent Bus Stations. I had pictures and much to say about the first two, but not much about the third. Well, during my last visit to Brazil two weeks ago, I was able to visit one of these intelligent bus stations to understand what it is all about. I brought with me some explanations and some pictures.
The project as a concept
The technological project is a part of a bigger project of organizing the chaos that was Bus Transport in Sao Paulo in the past. For doing so, the municipality planned bus corridors, which hold the traffic of large articulated buses, and a number of 42 large transfer stations. The buses travel in these corridors, which are fast and designed for their use, between the transfer stations. From the transfer stations to the various neighborhoods in Sao Paulo, people continue in smaller buses, sometimes microbuses or vans, according to the region's traffic and needs.
Nevertheless, selecting the buses which will run at each section and their itineraries was not the whole story. The main point was to synchronize the various buses in the best possible way, making best use of the transfer stations while giving the passenger the comfort to wait for the bus as less as possible and always know how much he should expect waiting.
The transfer stationThis is the point where technology comes in.
The project equipped the buses with cellular GPS devices. These devices get the positions of the buses at each given moment and transmit them to the data center, where the server calculates, according to the positions, the time each bus will arrive to the transfer station. If a bus is late, an alert is sent to the bus company, which enables them to insert a new vehicle in the line.
The electronic board in the platformIn each of the platforms, a small electronic display as above has been installed, to which the data of the next bus to depart from the same platform is transmitted by the server. The passengers standing at the platform can know which bus is coming next to the platform and in how many minutes.
At strategic points within the station, large video screens (around 120 inches according to my calculations) have been placed, and these show tables of next departures ordered by time. Data includes the line number, the time and the platform it will depart from. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of these screens, since they were allocated for closed-circuit TV at the time of my visit.
All the movement is controlled by a Control Room which exists at each transfer station and is managed by experts from SP-Trans, the local bus transport municipal service. The picture below shows the Control Room:
Inside the control roomOne of the main functions of the application is to show to the controllers in the control room the position of each bus near the station. There is no better way to do it than using a map.
The buses in the mapThe buses actually move in the map, showing the operators their position. A reminder: this IS a Magic-based application.
A tip of curiosity
Besides the additional comfort for the operators and for the general public, I was told in the station that the system has already had one very unexpected and positive collateral effect.
Operators told me that one day one of them saw one of the buses going out of its route, and he decided to call the police and ask them to verify. Through the screen of the system he could guide the police directly to the itinerary the bus was doing. At one point of the itinerary, the police closed the street and blocked the bus, and that was just in time and just enough to render the kidnappers without any damage to material or lives.
Conclusion
This application is another proof that with good Magic Knowledge, good understanding of current technological trends and some imagination, there are no limits to the things that can be done using the Magic Technology.
We can find today applications built with Magic technology serving the most different needs in the most different ways. This is just one more example of it.
Do you have another example? Send me and I will be happy to let all the distributors around the world know about it.
