Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

[Jeff Benson]

Alpha is preparing a series of streaming videos for the Alpha web site that will introduce Alpha Five V5 to novice and experienced database users. These videos will not be tutorials (those are in the works also), but informational videos that will inform and engage potential buyers of Alpha Five.

Below is a preliminary outline of the planned six videos.

We would appreciate your comments, thoughts and suggestions on this approach. Even if you already own Alpha (as most of you on board already do), you can provide us with the perspective of end users and evaluators looking for a new database tool and comparing it to other database products.

Please send your comments to [email protected] or add to this thread.

Preliminary Video Outline follows:

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Discovering Alpha Five Version 5
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A series of demonstration videos that reveal the power, ease of use and revolutionary development paradigm of Alpha Five Version 5

1 �Three Minutes To Your First Alpha Five database� (3 mins.)

Introduces the Alpha Five Control Panel � demonstrates what each control panel tab is for and show how quickly a new database can be created. Shows the Alpha Five menu and alludes to what you�ll see in the other videos for some of these menu choices.


2 �Spectacular Results From Minimal Effort� (12�15 mins.)

Starts with the premise of creating Alpha Sports. Defines the objective. Shows the Alpha Sports application and relates the benefits apparent in the program operation to the features in Alpha Five that enabled Alpha Sports to be built the way is in. This will reveal the layers of Alpha Five:

� developing with menu selections, drag and drop and Alpha Five built-in operations and functions;
� developing with Action Scripts and Xdialog boxes;
� developing with Xbasic coding and customization


3 �Easy to Use� (12�15 mins.)

Demonstrates the features of Alpha Five that make applications easy-to-use. Shows off the flexibility in design of layouts, drop-down menus, toolbars and bubble help. Auto-complete, function look-ups, field rules are all demonstrated to show how using Alpha Five is easy and applications built using Alpha Five features have the benefit of being easy for end-users to use.

4 "Powerful� (12�15 mins.)

Demonstrates the power of Action Scripting, robust security, Queries, Expression builder, Debugger. Emphasizes the use of Action Scripting as means to an end by itself and as a code writer to guide you, speed up coding and enhance your productivity. This video will contrast Alpha Five to Access and Filemaker.

5 �Revolutionary� (12-15 mins.)

This video will emphasize all the product features that reveal what�s going on behind the scenes to the user and developer. You�ll see the Code Explorer, Object Explorer, Xbasic Explorer, etc. This video will emphasize the shortcuts and tools that have been built-in to Alpha Five to enhance productivity and leap-frog the development capabilities of other products. Support for add-ins, third party controls and extensibility will be shown.

6 �It�s a wrap � Can we wrap one for you?� (3-5 mins)

A traditional features and benefits summary will be presented combining elements of the corporate presentation with reminders and short outtakes from the techniques shown in videos 2-5.

[Peter Langford]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Hello Jeff,

Just a quick suggestion(s):

One reason I was attracted to Alpha was that it's NOT a Microsoft product;

Two - Small is beautiful, you could illsutrate someone trying to get help direct from Bill G Vs. Selwyn

Three - don't mention the price increases (joke).

Gook luck with the project

Peter

[davej]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Jeff,

You might want to include a rework of the classic ad I saw once in which there was a visual comparison of the Xbasic code to do something (I forget exactly what) and the code it took to do the exact same thing in Access.

You could also include an overlay of a stopwatch showing the time it takes to do some operation in A5V5 and whatever you want to compare it to.

Dave Jampole

[Steve Pick]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

It seems for a new user to databases some of the concepts of databases should be outlined first. I bought a couple of books by Martin and Date, which showed me how tables should be defined in a generic way. The term Data normalization sounds a little frighting but I think one should understand this first before branching out to do anything but the most simple design.

Having defined the requirements of the table the forms and the field rules need exampling to show how easy it is build a customer, address, parts or supplier database (table).

Fairly useful SETS can then be introduced without any mention of Scripts or Xbasic. Ie A purchase order or an invoice for a beginner doesn't need a script.

Once having mastered this then one can provide examples showing the power of A5. I think possibly that the young lady who complained that help was only for the experienced users, might have been missing the basics. She needs to understood the concept of a table or why one was created.

We all have to start from square one, but the difficulty for the teacher is remembering how empty square one was.

Steve

[John Guy]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

29 July 2002


Steve,


Your comment on the teacher remembering "how empty square one" is a excellent. Likewise, my suggestion is for Alpha Five to also remember the same. I am a CPA who works with numbers all day long. My data is my job and is extremely important. Likewise, being able to hand off my work to the assistants and other operations managers is critical. Coming from a spreadsheet environment, to something new such as A5 always brings a degree of fear. Some people have more fear than others.

Regardless, if Alpha Five wants to tap into the huge market of spreadsheet users, then the conversion needs to be simple.

Maybe I have a head of cement, but so far I have needed more help than I expected to get started. So far I have not been able to convert to A5 to do a few of the numerous sophiscated applications I have already have created using a spreadsheet program. Fornutately, I am getting with another user here in Houston this wweek to help bridge this caynon of lack of understanding on my part.

As such, you may want to make a video just for the users of spreadsheet to show how to convert and "think" different as required by A5. One topic of great importantance is heavy users of pivot tables using spreadsheets, compared to doing the same reports with A5.

I feel "certain" that A5's mamnagement, etc. realizes there are millions and millions of spreadsheet users.

Sincerely,
JG
Houston, TX
281-679-9357

[russ Boehle]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

When I was searching for a data solution I tried Access, Paradox, and a few premade apps. Nothing worked the way I wanted it to work and Access and Paradox were to complicated to get started with.
I got a 3x5 card from Alpha offering I think Alpha 4 ver 2 for $79.00. I had never heard of them, but for $70.00 I figured it was a small risk. The rest is history, been with Alpha products since.
Your promotion could emphasize something like this. Also a point here is that the full product is now at a cost point that many will not buy it just to try it. The price is not a problem for me as I know what it will do but for someone who has never heard of Alpha?????
The money back guarantee is no solution as most won't bother with it. Either they will buy it or not. Perhaps a crippled version with action scripting but without the code editor for $79.00 will get those who will try it since the cost outlay is minimal. Many would then buy the full product. (Turbocad uses an approach like this and I guess it's successful as they continue to do it.)

Russ

[whanigsberg]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Some things which are tough in a spreadsheet are easier in a database and some things which are straightforward in a spreadsheet can require programming in a database.

So in response to John's question and to the question underlying the thread as a whole, a good topic might be
"What should I leave in the spread sheet and what should I move to the database environment?"

Bill

[David Sander]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Marketeers,

One item that I like to mention is the stability of file types in use by Alpha Five. When you use Alpha the database software doesn't force users into one way upgrades by obsoleteing the earlier file types. This is a popular problem with some MS products where when someone tries out the most recent version of a product, they discover that they have just taken a one way step to compatibility with the new version and obsoleted their old version.

Dave

[David Sander]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Jeff,

I strongly agree with Steve. Much of the difficulty of working with the software is not usability but simply knowing what to do from a database theory and design objective point of view.

I would suggest that you describe a sample business, describe the business purpose and how they measure their business metrics. Most people will need to figure out what the database will do before jumping into the database design. These steps will make the process much more concrete for them.

C.J.Date has suggested that many new users understand quickly that the redundency of badly normalized databases is both bad and extra work.

I suggest that new users also look at their existing paperwork for strong clues to how the business database should run and what data it should handle.

Dave

[John Guy]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

29 July 2002


Bill,


Your comment that "Some things which are tough in a spreadsheet are easier in a database" rings with 100% truth. However, I do NOT accept that this should be the situation.

I have resisted numerous forces to switch from spreadsheet to database, because I must hand off my work to clerks, operations personnel (even vice presidents) who want only simplicity. As such, communicaton with these people is more important than having the extra bells and wistles with a database.

However, spreadsheets are limited in their size (number of rows), as such I must move on. From an efficieny standpoint, I do not like to have two different systems. As such, if I was the owner of a company, I would do my best to mandate only one system to achieve the best communication and cooperation amongst the employees. (The cost of the software is the cheap part. Generally learing and maintianing the software is much more expensive.)

In summary, I have suggested to Alpha Five to add more features of a spreadsheet to make A5 more "user friendly". For instance, "cut and paste" nad deletion of rows/data is simple in spreadsheet. So far, I have not found it to be simple to cut and paste in A5. It seems, there has to be an import or marking of the records, etc., etc. which is for the birds.

Likewise, If I was the owner of a company, I would not want to have to pay for two sets of licenses for spreadsheets & A5, not to mention two sets of training, etc. Personaally, if I switch to A5, then I want to do all data storage/reporting in A5.

It seems that there is no use of the "shift" key in Alpha Five.

(Likewise, I can not figure out why there is no spell check application in this reply. Excuse - I have big fingers and hit the wrong keys way too often.)

Sincerely,
JG
Houston, TX
281-679-9357

[Chris Teo]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5


I believe what the guys here have described are constructive and true.
However, have you ever thought of the novice players out there what they really need? ... simplicity...
The simplicity to get around with the help files, how to start using the help files, what is the first file to read?
After reading the 1st file,where should I go next? If the reader wants to jump out of the 1st help file, is there a click for him/her to "jump" to the next step/level.
If they want to undertsnd more, or need more understanding, or if they find the elaboration notes are too dry, will there be a click to show them an example what the notes are trying to show ...
something along that line ...

By searching the help file index, can these readers get help?
By entering the keywords, can there be responds, or it will just "throw you the whole list" for you to browse thru...

Basically, a few key words..

1) Ease of use
2) Simplicity
3) Help within Help
4) References
5) Examples
and most of all, it is fun to play with ... while at least I find it fun ...

one more thing: who to refer to for help...

[whanigsberg]

RE: Help Us Market Alpha Five V5

Chris,

I find your points well-taken. I believe the help files are still under development and will improve. I must agred that present they are rudamentary and in some cases absent.

Here is where I am coming from, John.

I mainly do academic management applications. Here in Quebec there is a teacher workload calculation which is the ugliest thing imaginable. I know there are many spirited contenders for this honor but believe me, this one is horrible.

I actually have calculated it in A5 but there is also a fairly elegant spreadsheet to do the same thing.

What I would like to do would be to aggregate certain values in alpha, insert them into cells of the spreadsheet and read out the result.

Perhaps this is stupid, perhaps not. I don't really know. I do know that it took less knowledge to do the spreadsheet because exel is optimized for such problems.

On the other hand, I know people who manage big lists in excel because that's the only tool they understand. To a guy with a hammer, everything's a nail!

Bill