Vadim Software Gains New Customers and Growth

Challenge

Founded in 1975, Vadim Software is a leading provider of fully integrated, innovative software designed specifically for municipalities, local governments and utilities.

After 22 years of application development in the DEC Alpha environment, Vadim realized that they had outgrown their development languages and operating environments. Concerns over future application migration, application maintenance and scalability caused them to look for a development tool and server environment that provided maximum flexibility.

Vadim found that they could gain significant efficiencies in application maintenance and development by moving to Magic Software, the award-winning development environment. In 1996, they determined that Magic Software Enterprises development tools and application servers represented the best approach to migrate their application logic and customers to the Windows environment. By 1999, the entire suite of Vadim applications had been developed in Magic Software. Today, Vadim offers 26 modular applications which include both financial and operational functionality.

Solution

As technologies such as XML parsing, Web Services, .NET and J2EE support are added to the Magic Software eDeveloper (today branded Magic xpa Application Platform) toolkit, Vadim continues to find that they can offer their clients the most sophisticated, standards-based solutions available on the market today. Future migrations to new technologies such as these are significantly easier as a result. None of the application logic needs to be re-written in order to take advantage of these technologies. New Magic Software features are simply implemented to incorporate the emerging standards that have advanced over the years and will undoubtedly continue to proliferate. A great example of how Magic Software’s open approach to standards has been used to migrate Vadim applications even further is the new e-government initiative by Vadim.

The District of Summerland, British Columbia, Canada, was Vadim's first client some 26 years ago, and is still at the forefront of municipal technology as it implements Vadim's newest product - Virtual City Hall. The Vadim Virtual City Hall dispenses city services via the Internet according to the rules and procedures specified by the District of Summerland.

The Vadim Virtual City Hall is a promising new e-government solution that allows local governments to offer their services, process transactions and accept payments via the Internet. Virtual City Hall utilizes Magic Software technology to integrate the Web front-end with various Vadim application modules. As it is a pre-developed product, Virtual City Hall is significantly more affordable and easier to implement than a custom-developed virtual city hall.

Value

Superior Customer Service Fuels Vadim's Growth. As a result of their superior customer service and flexible approach to technology, Vadim has seen significant growth in their installed base of customers. Vadim's customers range from the town of Petersburg, Alaska (pop. 3,500) to the County of Simcoe, Ontario (pop. 330,000).

The City of Kawartha Lakes, Ontario (pop. 75,000) utilizes 15 of the 26 Vadim applications. Kawartha Lakes utilizes applications providing everything from utility billing and housing assistance to general ledger, budgeting and financial reporting.

Vadim achieves this success by making their technology as transparent as possible to their customers. By delivering rapid implementations, including the data conversion and training that is so crucial to smooth operations, Vadim finds municipal customers returning for additional modules in the Vadim suite. Regular user conferences, online support, telephone support and even 24-hour emergency response service all combine to create high customer satisfaction ratings among Vadim's clients.