Helios Upgrade?

[Tan-A-Rama]

Aren't we suppose to be getting an upgrade to Helios? I thought they said in Nashville that we would be getting an upgrade soon. Does anyone know about this?

~Michelle

[Andy]

Right, that is what they told Users at Nashville.

and Tony sent out an email to many Helios Users advising that a letter explaining the procedure for getting the upgrade together with the new dongle (and avoiding paid the $895. for that dongle) together with a form to request same would begin to be sent to existing users on November 25th ... some may have but I am not aware of any existing user that actually received that letter and/or form.

Here is the text of the email sent by Tony just prior to the Nashville 2002 show:
Quote:Dear Helios Members,


Membership does have its privileges! CIT, LLC is proud to announce that
Helios version 10 is currently being shipped to our new customers.
Experience the benefits of maintaining your active software maintenance
agreement by requesting your FREE upgrade. Customers who are currently
enrolled in our software maintenance program will begin receiving a letter
similar to this email the week of November 25th. Anyone who attends the
Nashville show may request their upgrade at the Helios booth. We will
begin shipping conversion programs the week of November 18th.

We want to ensure that only active Helios customers like you will receive
and enjoy the additional features and benefits of version 10. As a result,
we will be shipping you a new version 10 copy protection device (dongle).
You will need to return your version 9 dongle within thirty (30) days from
the time you receive your upgrade otherwise we will debit your account $895
until your version 9 dongle is received. We will include a shipping label
with your version 10 dongle to use to return the version 9 dongle so you
will not incur any shipping costs. The version 10 dongle will run both
version 9 and version 10 so we recommend that you change dongles as soon as
you receive your new one.

In order to continue providing the best technical support in the industry,
support for version 9 will be discontinued June 30, 2003. We have chosen
this date in order to coincide with Microsoft's end of product life cycle
phase out of Windows 98 support. Helios version 10 will only be supported
on Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional.

The industry's best software continues to get better, so get yours today!
We appreciate your loyalty and look forward to serving your software needs
in the future.


Sincerely,


Tony Toepfer,
President and Helios User

The version of Helios distributed at the Nashville show was V10.0.70. Here is a link that describes the various issues/problems that I have found with V10.0.70 ... I would not be in any hurry to "downgrade" but that is for each user to decide.

V10.0.70 - Issues

The V10 POS screen is also in my opinion a significant downgrade, with its many problems compared to the current V9 POS Screen ... the concept of Current Session processing is good, but poorly executed.

V10 POS Screen

There really is not much in the way of new features in V10 ... a few nice new features but considering it was finally released over a year after originally promised, much to do about nothing in this one man's opinion.

V10 Review of Changes and New Features

It is good to be able to confirm that the Data Encryption introduced into Helios in the pre-release version distributed at the Vegas show at the end of June 2002 (V10.0.45) on the Client Address and EFT Account Number have been removed in the version released at the Nashville show (10.0.70). Now Tony has been reported to have stated in Nashville that encryption was never going to be put into Helios, that he would not allow it. Then WHY, go to the trouble of putting it into V10.0.45 as reflected by the screen shot below.

Sample of V10.0.45 Encryption

While some Users calling into Helios report having been told that V10 has no problems and is ROCK SOLID, others have been told over the last month that V10.0.75 will be available in the next couple of weeks and correct all issues reported todate, looking forward to getting a copy of it ... will post my observations when I do.


Michelle, hope this helps, that is all I know about the V10 "Upgrade" status at this point ...

_________________

Andy Thompson
ACT Business Solutions
Toll-Free 877-777-6717
andy@atso.ca
ACT Help Center [ This Message was edited by: Andy @ ATSO.ca on 2003-01-16 11:45 ]