Roger Sippl, who founded and still chairs Informix Corp, is off and running with his latest venture, ProActive Software Inc in Mountain View, California, which has just launched its first product. The company was created to develop and market what it calls a new generation of enterprise-wide Customer Information Resource management systems. The system is described as a comprehensive family of enterprise-wide, client-server applications and tools designed to help companies improve customer satisfaction for competitive advantage. The company says that Support Advantage for Windows 3.1, the first of six Customer Information Resource applications, is available now, as is the ProActive Toolset, an object-oriented customisation environment. The system was developed by database experts and Sippl and company co-founder Steven Goldsworthy, former corporate vice-president of product development at Informix, in collaboration with Dr William Davidow, co-author of Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon and general partner at Mohr, Davidow Ventures, which has invested $1.5m in the start-up. ProActive’s system will support multiple SQL relational databases – Sybase, Informix, Oracle, Unix systems and Windows 3.1, X Window and Macintosh user interfaces. It also features its own workflow engine and Query-by-Example facility. Developed in C++ with a client-server architecture, it is built around a Dynamic Application Dictionary and the ProActive Toolset, which enables users to customise applications without changing source code. Coming up are Quality Advantage for quality assurance, SLT Advantage for sales management, Product Advantage for product marketing management, Customer Advantage and Field Engineering Advantage. Support Advantage, available now for Sybase, is designed to replace simple call tracking applications and home-grown and paper-based systems that have limited functionality, flexibility, and ease of use, and is aimed at Technical Support, Customer Service and Help Desk professionals in high technology, telecommunications, finance and medical equipment. It uses the database to access, capture and track complete profiles about customers, the products they have installed, and how they use them. It uses Object Linking and Embedding to link and attach multiple data types such as facsimiles, documentation, graphics, manuals, and technical bulletins to a customer case. It builds a library of catalogued solutions to previous cases, which can be searched using Query-By-Example. It’s from $25,000 depending on number of users and hardware. The ProActive Toolset for customising the application in C++ starts at $15,000. The company was originally styled Information Workbench and Sippl provided the seed capital. It claims strategic alliances with Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc on the hardware side.
