Funny you should mention that. We had been looking at AutoConnect and
saw a lot of potential there, when we were informed by one of the
engineers with our network switch vendor that we should take a good look
at a company called Cloudpath (http://www.cloudpath.net/).
You'll find they have a product called XpressConnect that looks
AMAZINGLY (cough, cough) similar to AutoConnect. I think you'll find
that the Cloudpath folks were actually the engine (no pun intended)
behind AutoConnect. In fact, we had found a bug with AutoConnect in
our evaluation of that product and when we had talked to the developer
with Cloudpath, he recalled being notified of that bug from the
idEngines folks and dealing with the fix for it.
In our evaluation/assessment of Cloudpath XpressConnect so far, we have
found them to offer everything we were getting with idEngines
AutoConnect, but with even faster turnaround in fixes and feature
enhancements and outstanding pre-customer support. Indeed, they worked
with us to move what we had set up in evaluation of the AutoConnect
platform over to their XpressConnect system so we didn't have to start
from scratch.
Eliminating the middle man here appears to have been a good decision.
Again, check out http://www.cloudpath.net/ and see if it doesn't look
familiar.
-- Jim Gogan
Director, Networking
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Scott Himes wrote:
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the frank report from your perspective. It's helpful for your
customers to know as much as possible about what's going on, even if
it's not the "official" word. Have you heard anything else from the
support side? Do you have any idea how long support will be up and running?
For the list: how many of your institutions are currently using
AutoConnect and would be affected by idEngines potentially going away?
Also, does anyone know of a product that is similar in function to
AutoConnect? I'd hate to have to replace it, but it sounds like we ought
to be prepared for that possibility.
Thanks,
Scott
Scott Himes
Director | Network & Telecom Services
Biola University
-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian McMahon
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 9:36 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] idEngines selling assets
Quoth "John York" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> We just got a letter from lawyers saying that idEngines "has made a
> decision to begin a process to sell its assets." That's too bad, since
> they had a great product. Don't know what it means about support...
I'm not on the business side of the house and I can't speak for the company,
but I can tell you that, at least for the moment, support operations are
continuing. I'm still employed, the telephone hotline and support website
are both still operational, and we're answering technical questions to the
best of our ability.
What happens down the road is entirely up to whatever entity ends up in
control of the idEngines assets. Obviously, we all hope that the acquirer
is someone who sees the value in our product, and will continue to develop
and support it. As you can imagine, this is of considerable personal
interest to me as well.
In the meanwhile, I strongly recommend that any customers who are not on the
current (and in my experience, very stable) 5.0.5 code make plans to get
there soon. Anyone on pre-5.0 code, please be sure you read the part in the
release notes about LICENSES first. Proper prior planning prevents panicky
support calls (or something to that effect).
To reiterate, I am only able to speak as an individual technical staff
member, and not for the company as a whole. And I do wish I had something
more positive to tell you all. More news will no doubt follow.
--
Brian McMahon, Member of Technical Staff, Identity Engines
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://support.idengines.com/
**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent
Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
**********
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
