Original publication date: December, 2008
OutreachSystems is a new division of Softshare that specializes in Web-based client activity tracking software and solutions for the business assistance and outreach market. Hmmm… sound familiar? It should, because that’s exactly what Softshare’s been doing for the last 20 years. We’re just putting a more intuitive name to it.
In fact, OutreachSystems is a new division in name only. When you call to schedule training, Len Price will still handle the details. You’ll continue to count on James, Michael, and Rachael for top-notch support. Karen Loban is still your search profile guru. (And I’m the same person who wrote September’s newsletter.) So if nothing’s changed, why go to all the trouble of launching a brand new division? Let us answer that question with a walk down memory lane.
Since its inception in 1982, Softshare has always had a strong focus on government-related solutions. Initially, these solutions came in the form of locating and distributing bid opportunities, and they’re responsible for our first introduction to the PTACs who used those same solutions to distribute bid opportunities to their clients. It didn’t take long (1989) for Softshare to broaden its scope of government solutions to include client activity tracking software (first DOS CATS, then WinCATS, and now WebCATS) for PTACs, SBDCs, and other types of outreach programs.
But the history of how WebCATS came to be is only half of the story. There’s a whole other history that you might be less familiar with: that of our e-commerce suite of business-to-business solutions. Surprisingly, this line of products also sprang from Softshare’s involvement with government contractors when, in 1992, the federal government mandated that EDI (electronic data interchange) be used to view and respond to RFQs. 16 years later, Softshare is still riding the EDI wave, even though the government abandoned EDI almost as quickly as it was adopted.
From Softshare’s humble beginnings as a government bid opportunity distribution company, we now have two thriving product lines. And while those product lines once shared a tenuous connection, EDI users today typically have no connection to government contracting, and outreach programs definitely have no need for EDI. With not even a thread of commonality left, we feel that keeping the “Softshare” brand for both product lines was causing market confusion.
After much consideration, we took the plunge and adopted OutreachSystems as the new branding for WebCATS and all add-on products and services that go along with it. OutreachSystems is much more descriptive of the WebCATS product line and, as we branch into new outreach markets, we hope it’ll serve us well.
With the creation of the new OutreachSystems division within Softshare, along with the new outreachsystems.com Web site, we hope to give you a better forum to keep you abreast of all the new features and enhancements in WebCATS and its various add-on components such as eCenter Direct, the Bid Match program, and the Custom Activity Forms Module. We are very excited about all the capabilities within the products and are looking forward to working with you one-on-one to continue integrating all your economic outreach activities into one central database.