TigerPaw Software Inc. held its second annual user conference on October 19-21, 2011 in the Dallas downtown Sheraton. Attendance was 25 percent higher this year than last, with about 500 additional attendees from nearly 400 companies. Vendor booths jumped from 22 to 33 year-over-year as well.
The theme for the conference was Convergence, as in resellers able to support both datacom and telecom customers. TigerPaw started by catering to telecom resellers, but the company’s customer balance today is roughly three datacom to two telecom companies.
Although company officials admit TigerPaw is rather small (45 employees) to host and pay for an annual user conference, President James Foxall saw many benefits from the company’s first show. “We went from wondering if we could pull it off last year to wondering why we waited so long to have it,” he says.
TigerPaw, started in 1984 by James’ father Dave, now CEO, actively advocates for a family atmosphere and a good work-life balance. Linda Foxall, mother of James and wife of Dave, is one of the leading programmers for the company. All three were available to conference attendees during both day and evening events.
The latest TigerPaw software release, 11R2, has been out only a short time, so James Foxall focused on new product features during his keynote speech on Thursday morning. Unlike many PSA (professional services automation) software products, TigerPaw includes accounting modules within the program. Version 11R2 revamped the billing module to offer “touch-free billing” to cut the time needed for invoicing.
PARTNER PERSPECTIVES
Attendee Michele Miller of Ener Systems, a five-person reseller outside New Orleans, approached James Foxall last year about improving the time-entry screens. “We couldn’t go into depth during the show, but he called me later and asked for my suggestions,” says Miller. “They made the improvements, and the changes save me hours per week.” Miller also spoke on the new time-entry module improvements in an educational seminar.
Colleen Callahan, president of Dubuque Data in Debuque Iowa, a 50-person company selling software to auto dealers, uses TigerPaw to manage her customers’ installations. “We’re here to find out if we can adapt TigerPaw to help us manage development,” says Callahan. “TigerPaw developers use the software that way, and showed us how. Turns out we’re not using 20 percent of the power of the software. We’re just as bad as the customers we complain about.”
Using TigerPaw’s customers as program presenters was quite popular with attendees. Many mentioned their favorite seminar was a panel of customers answering questions about how they use the software.
Randy Hall of WorldLan Technology, near Akron, Ohio, has been a TigerPaw customer for more than 20 years. “I never miss a Robin Robins seminar,” says Hall, speaking about an event he had wanted to attend, “but I’m here because TigerPaw is the most important part of my business.” Hall works the Robin Robins marketing program through TigerPaw’s customer tracking and CRM modules.
The user conference next year will be held in mid-October, and may move from Dallas to Chicago.
