What s Happening with Summation? FAQs

Transcription

1 What s Happening with Summation? FAQs WHY? Why did AccessData choose Summation over competing products, such as Concordance or CaseLogistix? Actually that is a fairly difficult question to answer, because it involves countless discussions all covered by NDA agreements. All we can really say is that there were only a few viable options with comparable technology and none with comparable brands or presences. So we feel very fortunate to be able to include Summation in our portfolio of products. INTEGRATION -- MAKING FTK THE UNDERLYING FOUNDATION OF SUMMATION SOLUTIONS: Will Enterprise be integrated with FTK or only iblaze and CaseVantage? We are a mid-sized law firm, representing employers. We have had Summation for >10 years, and we have had troubles using the client in the last 2 years, and support has been unable to work out the bugs. Will the new FTK replace Summation's guts/gui? FTK technology will become the core engine of all Summation products including iblaze and CaseVantage, but the workflows and product interfaces of these products will remain familiar to Summation users and simply be enhanced. These changes are being introduced to increase speed, functionality and efficiency in our litigation support software, but also to increase stability. Does this mean that there will be no distinction between the Summation and Summation Enterprise products? I am an Enterprise user -- you keep saying iblaze -- do you view them as the same thing? We are eliminating the gap between iblaze functionality and Enterprise functionality. iblaze and Enterprise will be known simply as Summation. The only difference between the two products is that Enterprise will be licensed to handle greater data volumes. So technically speaking, there will be no difference between the two products, but practically, they will be licensed differently. Are you saying that iblaze will scale better? Yes much better. When you mention the "guts" of FTK that iblaze will be integrated with FTK are you referring to a SQL or Oracle backend or something else? Will the core DB of these products be SQL? Will Summation Enterprise be moving away from the SQL backend? If so, what backend will the new iblaze product be using? Is AD planning to eliminate the Saturn DB engine of iblaze and develop this into SQL, possibly SQL Express? What will be involved in migrating our Enterprise databases into the new platform? The core products will ship with PostgreSQL. However, it will also support MS SQL and Oracle. Therefore, a migration path is part of our core development to ensure seamless migration from the older version of the database to the new and enhanced version. Migration tools will be made available to enable this migration tools that are much better than what have been provided in the past.

2 Will Enterprise and iblaze remain as a thick client or is there a focus on converting these applications to a web interface? Will the Summation software still be usable without Web interface, using the database on the law firm's server [depositions and documents stored on firm s network rather than web database]? iblaze and Enterprise will have the same functionality, and be known simply as Summation. The iblaze\enterprise products and CaseVantage web-based platform will work seamlessly together. Customers can choose a single-user license (iblaze) or Enterprise licenses to allow multiple concurrent users on the network. Summation users can add CaseVantage licenses to their review infrastructure to enable web-based collaborative analysis as needed. Summation users can choose to work in a web-enabled environment or offline as they see fit. What about Web-Blaze is that gone? Is CaseVantage replacing WebBlaze? The future of WebBlaze is somewhat uncertain at this point. We are looking into whether it is best to leave WebBlaze its own stand-alone platform or upgrade users to CaseVantage, making CaseVantage our standard web-based platform. What is the timeline for getting all the features of iblaze into Summation Enterprise? When we will see a demo of all of the integrated products Summation Enterprise, iblaze and web? We are planning to release the integration in the middle of 2011, and demonstration videos of the product line will be available shortly after release. Is there going to be any future development for Summation Enterprise or is it going to be shifted to FTK? By integrating the features of iblaze and Summation Enterprise and bringing in FTK as the underlying engine, we will be able to deliver valuable product enhancements and new capabilities to customers who are currently using iblaze, as well as those currently using Summation Enterprise. This will solve the issues experienced in the past with regard to product support and development. What are you going to do about the Summation interface? This is a very interesting question because the user base is very much split between loving the current interface and being extremely frustrated by it. We faced this same dynamic with FTK at AccessData. What we did with FTK and what we expect to do with the Summation products is honor those customers that like the existing interface by keeping it as an option but offering extensive configuration capabilities to enable other users that don t like it to radically change it. How successful we will be at this is unknown at the moment, but that is the path we are currently travelling. PRICING MODEL: In short, for the smaller firms, can we afford it? Will the pricing be tiered? Will you change your pricing structure for iblaze? We will continue to have pricing models (tiers) and product offerings to meet all sizes and shapes of law firms and corporations. AccessData has always had a large customer base of smaller organizations, and we will continue to make our technology affordable to those smaller firms and corporations. While we see significant value in owning a single, integrated litigation support software infrastructure, we recognize the challenges in adopting and introducing a unified solution. Our intention is to simply support our client s workflow at any point in their process by keeping our solution modular. Therefore if an organization is not interested in addressing everything from litigation hold to attorney review with AccessData, we make it possible for that organization to implement just the capabilities they need to fill out their ediscovery process. Licensing options will continue to be available for everything from the single user instance to the multi-user enterprise-class install.

3 I like the scalability concept, will licensing and pricing follow that too? Yes but we will not use a per-gb pricing model that many of our competitors use, because we believe these models are designed to milk the customer, while providing little value. We firmly believe that an enterprise license should allow our clients to use our products as much and as often as they need. WHAT FEATURES ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AND WHAT IS COMING SOON? Also, are you working on an early case assessment tool such as what Clearwell offers? The AccessData ediscovery solution already delivers a very robust set of ECA features, and we continue to improve the workflow, functionality and user experience. The AD ediscovery product is far superior in its ability to handle large data sets both in efficiency and accuracy, when compared to its competitors, because we have been delivering forensic-level processing and deep analytics to law enforcement and government agencies for a decade. You may want to review our ediscovery Resources ( which include a product demonstration covering the early case assessment capabilities of AD ediscovery. We will be sending out an updated product demonstration soon, which will illustrate the new features that will be available in our upcoming product release. You will receive an with that new video when it is available. Many large organizations already rely on AD ediscovery s web-based early case assessment capabilities for its analytics, including threading, sophisticated search options and filtering. AD ediscovery also supports customizable export to support an organization s existing litigation support tools. This feature will be further enhanced with the next release, which is due out this year. Will you outline your analytic upcoming features, such as auto reporting of thread, doc clusters? Further enhanced threading, native variable near-dupe analysis, concept clustering, and extensive visualization. The deep integration of the AccessData scalable architecture and core competencies within FTK will allow us to deliver native and forensic file ingestions, processing, culling, first-pass review, visualization, analytics, conversion and load file generation. We will include abilities to convert data into load files, native files and TIFF/PDF. Will AD continue working with third-party software providers such as IPRO s escanit solution? What, if any, integration will you have with products, such as CaseMap, Trial Director or Sanction, as well as with products such as Analyst Notebook? Yes, we see no benefit to locking clients into using our tools or solutions exclusively. We make every effort to maintain compatibility with products both upstream and downstream in the litigation process. Also many of the features in some of the above-mentioned products will be native to the integrated Summation application, such as document conversion. Compatibility with other tools is purely a function of customer demand. We strive to meet our clients unique needs through development of our products. For example, our development to support data collection from structured repositories, such as Symantec EV and Microsoft SharePoint, has been completely client driven. Contact your local sales representative for specific compatibility questions: / What is happening to customers who are still running Summation LG Gold? Blaze LG and LG Gold products will not be receiving further updates, instead we are devoting our resources to bringing more stability and advanced features to iblaze, Enterprise and CaseVantage. Please note that you will be automatically upgraded to iblaze at your regular support renewal time and that iblaze offers all the same functionality as LG and LG Gold.

4 What version of Summation iblaze will be certified for Windows Server 2008RS OS? When will this be available? Will it run in a virtual environment? The current version of iblaze 3.1 supports operability on Windows Server Operation in a virtualized environment should not pose a problem. However, performance is dependent on a number of factors, including available RAM, CPU configuration and storage type and volume. We recommend dedicated hardware for optimal performance. Is Summation iblaze certified to run on Windows 7 OS in a 64-bit environment? If not, what version will be and when will it be available? The current version of iblaze 3.1 supports operability on Windows 7, via 32-bit compatibility mode on a 64-bit system. We do not expect introduction of native support for a 64-bit OS until late Q2 or early Q3 of This is an excellent example of the benefits associated with implementing our FTK technology as the underlying engine. Any specific plans to expand the iblaze Application Programming Interface? Timetable? Will any "scripting" functions exist, such as is present in iblaze now? At some point in the future there will be a standard set of published APIs in the product to support scripting functionality. Will the future iblaze handle PDF images faster? Yes, once integration is complete next year you will see a significant improvement in the handling of PDFs, as well as other image types. Any plans to develop conceptual search? Will there be an integrated solution for stemmed searches? Will there be better searching facilities within Enterprise? Building complicated searches can be time consuming and can sometimes span dozens of searches. Searching will be vastly improved through the integration of FTK, which exposes the full power of dtsearch, allows for import and free form search queries. What are the plans regarding the Summation viewer, which does not properly handle PDF versions greater than Acrobat 5 (1.4)? Are you going to make an enhanced viewer so that you don't need to have a local copy of the application to view it? The current native viewer will be replaced to properly handle a majority of existing file types, thus eliminating the need to have local installations of the native applications to support core features. AccessData technology currently allows a user to view files, such as PDF and Excel in a near native viewer within the FTK interface. This is another benefit of making FTK the foundation of Summation products. Big function of Enterprise for many firms is the ability to load while database is in use. It's why we are considering an enterprise upgrade over iblaze. Will the integrated solution provide this same capability? The new architecture, which applies to iblaze, will support multi-user concurrent activity, including loading data while performing review. AccessData technology already enables this. So once FTK becomes the engine driving Summation products, you will see a dramatic improvement in your ability to view and search documents as more data is being processed into the database Are there any existing materials related to dealing with strings within iblaze, or would this be an individual support issue. iblaze does not currently support threading, but will through integration activity next year.

5 What improvements are you going to make with case management in Summation? Will you have it work MS Outlook, so we can send out calendar entries? We are currently scoping work to extend support for case management. We understand the value inherent in being able to not only perform review, but to develop and manage the underlying storyline from the same litigation support platform. With regard to case management, any concerns or requests for functionality can be sent to Any steps towards Mac OS client compatibility for any of these products? While there are no plans to develop the ability to support the Mac OS as the host platform, AccessData does have full support for collection and analysis of data stored on the Mac OS. HELP / SUPPORT / ONLINE VIDEO TUTORIALS vs. FORMALIZED TRAINING Historically, Enterprise Support was poor-ok when needed. It appears from this presentation that the Enterprise area has once again been ignored. I apologize we really should have addressed this directly in the presentation. Support for Enterprise customers is being radically redone to create a more tiered support structure that includes Technical Account Managers(TAMs), which are field resources that will directly visit the customer when significant problems arise. Support is a huge priority for us at AccessData. So if you feel we are not providing adequate support once we roll out the TAM structure, please me directly (tleehealey@accessdata.com). Will the Enterprise help and training materials and help desk support be increased/improved? We are currently developing a completely revamped training program for all our Summation products. In addition, throughout the integration process, we will be working to deliver more comprehensive support documents, which will be easy for our customers to use. Finally, there will be mini-webinars illustrating key features of the Summation technology and how to use those features. How will existing maintenance agreements be handled. Do will we have to pay more now. We do not anticipate any changes to existing maintenance agreements. Current contracts and price points will remain in effect. Will you be returning the tutorial recorded web videos to the iblaze subsection of the website? Other static training materials? We will be providing new mini webinars that illustrate various features of the product, as well as longer overview webinars that will walk you through each product. We will be rolling out an entirely new website shortly and all web videos will be available on their corresponding product pages when they become available. Will you offer GSA rates for training? Yes we offer GSA rates for everything we sell. Will Summation Certified Trainers continue to receive free iblaze upgrades? Yes. Will the Enterprise help and training materials and help desk support be increased/improved. Our plans are to improve support in every area. If you have specific needs and opinions that will assist us, please contact us at support@accessdata.com or feedback@accessdata.com.

6 Before I commit to purchasing training services I would like to see some samples of the training materials. Is that possible? We will be happy to provide sample data so that you can make a fully informed decision about the offerings. Please contact training@accessdata.com. Why were Summation tutorials removed? We will be providing new mini webinars that illustrate various features of the product, as well as longer overview webinars that will walk you through each product. We will be rolling out an entirely new website shortly and all web videos will be available on their corresponding product pages when they become available. Will there be some type of Train the Trainer course for Summation? I am the only trainer at my law firm and they would like for me to learn Summation to teach it in house. Absolutely, you ll be pleased with the next round of information to be released on December 1, Please keep an eye on the AccessData web page. Is this All Access Pass in addition to the price of the maintenance agreement? Yes, the software/maintenance agreement provides for you to receive new updates to your software assets and technical support but does not provide for formalized training. The All Access Pass is specifically for supporting your use of tools and providing a variety of educational resources to you and your colleagues in the workplace. So if you have Summation's EIE Certification, is it still valid, and what is its equivalent in AccessData's world? You will maintain your EIE Certification. If a new naming convention is established, it will continue to recognize your special skill set. Will there be classes for beginning litigators explaining the basics of using ediscovery, court requirements regarding conferences and agreements on costs and procedures to be used, the basic framework for setting up a database, etc.? Absolutely, we understand that there is a disconnect between new associates and seasoned litigators. We believe that there is a desire for the new associates to obtain a different skill set and are prepared to meet those needs. I heard that in the future all currently certified trainers are out and that we HAVE to get training thru AD only. Not sure what you mean by this. People are free to get their training anywhere they want and from whoever they want. AccessData will offer extensive course in this area but if you don t like them and would prefer to receive your training from someone else that is not problem for us.