This month, the Notes from the President portion of the newsletter is being written by a guest writer. Please be assured that the Notes from the President will continue next month with the words of Red Wing Software President, Ken Hilton.

By Stephanie Elsen, Red Wing Software Marketing Manager

I still remember when my dad brought home a Commodore VIC-20 computer. He set it up in the basement and told us to figure out how to use it. I was around 11 years old, and I thought we were certainly a high-tech family! I followed the instructions and created a little game. It was crazy how you could just push those little buttons and create your very own game.

I also remember the Macintosh computers in the school library where we played the Oregon Trail. There again, just push a few buttons, and take a (fairly slow and choppy) journey across the United States as the pioneers did. Technology grew, and soon I was in college where they expected me to use a computer, along with a Norton Textra Writer program, to write and print up my papers. WHAT? Isn’t writing the paper hard enough? I really struggled with that back then! But before long, it became much easier than using a typewriter, or writing it by hand.

I am sure you can remember as I can all the new technology that came along over those years. I don’t know about you, but I found each and every one a little scary and intimidating at first, but after learning to use it, I wondered how I ever got along without it! Thankfully, now that I’m older and technology moves faster, I am used to learning new things. Windows® 10, the newest iPhone® update, Facebook’s™ new interface…all new technology I’ve gotten used to fairly recently.

I love working for Red Wing Software - a company that is constantly striving to provide new technology for our customers. It is great to hear from customers who can now complete processes faster, access information more easily, and become more efficient because of using our products. We now have CenterPoint available in a cloud (hosted) environment, which can help so many of our customers. Sometimes we have to sunset our older products in order to make way for the newer technology. If you are still using a legacy product, I strongly urge you to have a look at CenterPoint, whether it’s the installed or cloud version. It is an amazing product, and we hear from customers often that they wish they had made the switch sooner.