FOCUS 2.0 Expose' - Introduction

FOCUS 1.0 is the version of FOCUS that you will all have running on your desktops and in your stores. It was written originally in 1996 and was introduced as a saleable product to opticians in 1999. 11 years later it is now in need of a rewrite. Technology has changed and the needs of a modern optometric practice have matured. Our company landscape has also changed with the merger of Relcon and Ocuco and the acquisition of a number of other complementary companies. This gives us a portfolio of 4 major optometric practice management systems being used at thousands of sites in 3 continents and over 10 countries. We have one of the largest optical software development teams in the world dedicated to improving products which help meet the needs of our customers. The UK and Irish optometric independent markets are a very important part of our continuing success in this industry and only by continuously improving will this remain the case.

To this end we made the decision some time ago to rewrite FOCUS 1.0 and release FOCUS 2.0 to our existing customers. If we are to continue as the leading software house and provide you with a viable partner in technology we have to leverage all the assets of the company to provide you with a sustainable and mutually profitable product that serves your needs both now and into the future. This principle is something that we should all greet with optimism and enthusiasm, as we are all aware of the inconvenience and difficulties caused when something that we rely on to help operate our businesses is no longer viable. We have decided to rewrite FOCUS 2.0 around the platform and technological architecture of the Acuitas software product. In short, this means that it will be built on the Oracle database platform and use industry standard 3-tier client/server methodology. We are also able to draw on the years of development which have already been implemented in Acuitas which serves both independent opticians and large chains of opticians. It has been localised into a number of foreign markets to account for various fiscal and language environments. We are only able to do this because of the solid basis upon which Acuitas is built.

You may be fearful that this is a means to move you onto a product which you did not choose to purchase but this is simply not the case. If we had decided that this was the route that we should take, we would have made that decision long ago as we have done with other customer bases which came with company acquisitions. We decided that the FOCUS user-base was significant, and the differences between FOCUS and Acuitas too valuable to take this approach. We will, however utilise Acuitas technology where the differentiation between the 2 products is not significant. This will bring ongoing improvements to both FOCUS 2.0 and Acuitas with a single developer effort. This mechanism is also a major reason why we have chosen to adopt this approach; we will see continuous improvement to the FOCUS 2.0 and Acuitas products as we invest in our unified development team.

We will now take a look at the individual areas within FOCUS 2.0 and illustrate/explain new features and changes. Screens are liable to change as many features are not fully developed and some screens are only prototypes for the application.