We're about ten months into the software development and things are going well. Certain technologies took longer to master but we're past all of the big hurdles. The end result is looking great and we've been getting positive feedback about the reports and screens on the beta forums for several months now.
Our timeline has stabilized and I'm comfortable projecting specific release dates. First, let me jump to the bad news--we're running behind. But just a bit. I was shooting for a year-end beta but we need six more weeks. If I had to point fingers, I'd point one at the ORM layer and the other at Silverlight/WPF. But we're past those challenges and the rest of the product is coming together much faster.
Timeline:
- November - Alpha Release
- mid-February - Beta Release
- February 26-27 - Virtual Office Conference
The really good news is that FinFolio is looking better than expected. This is by far a better product than Techfi and will be a next-generation system in virtually every respect. We are building desktop and web products simultaneously using a technology called WPF. The desktop product is a high-end tool for power users and your operations team. The web front-end is friendlier, has a streamlined feature set, and is better suited for casual and first-time users. Both products run on the same database and I anticipate most advisors using both front-ends throughout their firm.
The client reports look great and include several different graphics templates, or you can customize your own to match your firm's colors and logo. You can also write entirely new reports using a report writer of your choice. We'll be releasing the source code and report files for all of the stock reports, which are written in Crystal.
The Virtual Office conference is the first time we'll be out in public demoing FinFolio, so we're treating it like a rollout. We'll have a booth and will do some sort of formal presentation during the conference. Please let me know if you plan on coming.
Happy Halloween!