Cheetah - Captioning/Subtitling & Court Reporting

We Heard You!

2007-07-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Late last year we had decided that, since only about 5% of court reporters attend the NCRA conventions, we would focus our efforts on State Court Reporter Associations and reduce our spend in the JCR.

However, we got much feedback that you DO want us at the conventions as well as advertising in the JCR.

We Heard You!

We have reinstated our advertising with the JCR (you'll see it in the September Issue) and we will be in Dallas at the upcoming NCRA convention.

We are also rolling out our State Court Reporter Association program. We've begun advertising in the newsletters of a couple of state CR Associations and will be doing more as time goes on!

So, come by our booth at the NCRA Convention and we'll get you a demo of SmartCAT!

Take care,

- Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations & Director of Marketing

Is it Hard to Move from TurboCAT to SmartCAT?

2007-04-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

I continue to get calls from people that ask, "I've been on TurboCAT forever. I'm sure that nobody else is left using it, but I need to move to your windows software, is it hard to make the move?!?".

Actually, we still have many many many people in just your boat! People loved TurboCAT because Cheetah has been known for its simple and reliable software for years. We have continued that trend into SmartCAT, in many ways making it much better than TurboCAT. It's no wonder that people loved TurboCAT so much that they don't want to jump. However, as time goes by and old *and reliable* laptops are becoming harder and harder to find, people find themselves at the crossroads, wondering what they'll have to give up to make the leap.

We find that it takes people about 10% of the time to learn SmartCAT that it initially took them to learn TurboCAT. It does take a little bit of time, but surprisingly little at that.

Since it is in Windows, it will be different, however, you'll notice when you get into SmartCAT that the editing is virtually identical! You still hit "n" to scan to next, "t" to text global, "g" to steno global, and the list goes on and on and on!

We've spent our lives and careers here over the last 5 years ensuring that our beloved TurboCAT users can make the transition with minimal time and effort and allowing them to go out and buy bright-and-shiny new computers and new printers without stress!

Our SIX training options, in decreasing order of self-drive:

1. The Manual! Currently weighing in at 478 pages, it's electronic in format, very very good and very user friendly, full of pictures and great for the self-directed, self-teaching sort of person! If you're a "Get-In-There-and-Figure-It-Out-Myself" sort of Court Reporter, this is for you! This is included at no additional charge with the purchase of SmartCAT and is automatically installed when you install SmartCAT (we update it with each new release too and you can always get the latest copy from the website if you're up-to-date on your maintenance contract).

2. Quick-Start-Guide! This is a 16-Pager that takes about an evening (for a technologically-oriented, self-driven court reporter) to go through. Running through this will allow you to have a very nice context for getting going most-quickly in SmartCAT. This is also included at no additional charge with the purchase of SmartCAT and is also automatically installed when you install SmartCAT.

3. Online Videos! We have a whole slew of videos on how to get going on SmartCAT. You can play them, review them, go back-and-forth, stop them to practice using what you've learned and really immerse yourself in them. Also, we find that though many of our users know how to edit like the wind, they often need help on Windows, so we also offer some videos that help there too! Online Videos are available at no additional charge for our on-maintenance customers.

4. Walk-throughs! You can schedule 2- to 2.5-hour walk-throughs with us. It works like this: we limit it to a couple of hours (because, in our estimation, the brain can only retain what the butt can handle!). Then, when we start the call with you, we ask you what you'd like to cover. If you don't know, we have a path which we can take you through. If you're a beginner, we'll walk you through your style sheet and getting started. If you're an old pro, we'll give you tips and tricks on customizing SmartCAT to kick out beautiful, accurate transcripts in less and less time. EVEN BETTER, when you finish, we can schedule a time to do another one! We will do as many walk-throughs as you like to cover all the topics you wish. Walk-throughs are available at no additional charge for our on-maintenance customers.

5. Group Trainings! We hold 15 to 20 Group Trainings all over the United States annually. While primarily focusing on our major markets (we rotate through California, Chicago and New York, going to one location monthly), we also do get around to other spots in the U.S. as customers ask for them. Not only do we do One-and-a-half-day Basic Trainings for 1.2 Continuing Education Units (CEUs), we also do One-day Advanced Trainings for .8 CEUs. Basic Trainings are no additional charge for purchasers of SmartCAT within their first year and $310 for our on-maintenance customers after that first year. Advanced Trainings are $200 for on-maintenance customers. We do have a slight increase in price for last-minute enrollees. Your pricing questions can be found by clicking HERE.

6. Personal Trainings! Our SmartCAT-using, full-time-CSR, business-partner-Kelly will come to your house and work with you one-on-one until you feel comfortable! You read that right, she'll sit with you in your living room working with you and explaining in her very expert and highly personalized way how to make the most out of your SmartCAT system. Since it means putting Kelly on a plane, food and lodging expenses as well as taking her time away from knocking out expedites, we can't offer this as part of a maintenance fee. However, if you're interested, please do contact us at training@cheetahinternational.com for a quote.

So, as you may have gathered, we are utterly dedicated to making your transition to SmartCAT as quick & easy as possible, in addition to well-suited to your level of self-direction and inquisitiveness. As always, do let us know if there is anything we can do to be of help to you.

Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations & Director of Marketing
Cheetah International, Inc.

Software is Free?

2007-03-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Spend time in any college town and in time, you'll almost certainly hear of a band named "Free Beer". The trick is that when their band name is on the marquis of a local club, passersby see "Free Beer" prominently displayed and go inside, expecting to get a gratis lager but have their hopes dashed when they find only a mediocre band with a catchy name.

Nowadays, we here a lot about "Free Software". To quote the Free Software Foundation, the GNU Project, "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer." For their full article, click here.

In the macro-sense, what happens is:
1. Someone becomes disenchanted with the price of a piece of software
2. They write (alone, with a group of friends or as an open-source community) a "free" alternative, usually in their free-time as a hobby
3. The users see that it's a decent substitute for the "pay-for" version
4. Users abandon the "pay-for" version for the "free" version (jeopardizing or destroying the financial viability for the initial "pay-for" supplier company)
5. Users have questions about usage, how to enhance it, etc....
6. They ask the software writer or community for help in getting their needs met
7. As the magnitude of questions and requests increase, it becomes burdensome and "more-than-a-hobby"
8. The person or members of the community begin to charge small amounts for the software so that they can maintain their livelihoods while making support and development a full-time function
9. Big companies adopt the software
10. Big demands is created for people who can develop and support the software
11. The size of this demand creates paid-consultants and developers for the "free software"
12. The demand for more sophisticated developers and support people leads to industry being created around the new "formerly-free" software
13. The price falls into line with the first "pay-for" software
14. Go back to step #1

We've seen this cycle happen multiple times. The two most notable examples: Linux is through this cycle, Firefox is mid-way through this cycle. The outcome is that you end up in the longer-term with the sort of bait-and-switch that was mentioned with the "Band Named Free Beer" scenario earlier in this article.

At Cheetah, we know that software is not truly free. Even if it's created to be free, the longer-term support and product development demands can only prevent it from being free. To that, we do our very best to keep our operating costs low and deliver a very good product (SmartCAT, TurboCAT for Windows) at a very good value. Did you know that we've not increased prices in 20 years since the Cheetah Systems was founded in 1987?

By maintaining our discipline and continually looking at ways to innovate and keep costs low while improving our tech support, training, testing and product development processes, we are able to ensure that we will be a stable supplier for top-notch CAT software and have brilliantly knowledgeable, friendly people here for you for a good long time.

All the best,

Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations & Director of Marketing
Cheetah International, Inc.

Cheetah and the NCRA Mid-Year Convention

2007-03-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Cheetah will not be attending the upcoming NCRA Mid-Year Convention and we will continue to advertise periodically in the JCR.

We have thought hard about our marketing and advertising decisions over the past half decade. We have also received some comments and observations from people that, by not attending or by advertising sporadically, that the industry might not be aware that we are in business.

We acknowledge that those speculations may be right and we could possibly be making a mistake by not being present at the mid-year NCRA event and in the national Journal of Court Reporting magazine.

We decided that we would try something different a few years ago after our conversations with some customers, reviewing what the previous owners/managers had done and surveying the changes in the media world.

Most of our customers had started to search for us on the internet – not in the JCR.

We heard a significant number of customers tell us they did not go the mid-year or annual NCRA shows, they like their state reporter association meetings better.

We also started to feel that advertising was a bit more ‘big company’ than we really wanted to be.

So we thought we would try an experiment for a while. We have spent our time and money contacting all of our customers via phone and taken great care in hiring really talented people to working in customer service and technical support. We have also spent more time working on our website and providing user forums.

Our customers have helped us understand that it is better to be small and personal, and better to have our solid technical support available 7x24x365 than to spend money advertising in a magazine that reaches only about a third of court reporters and attending an annual event that is attended by only about 5% of court reporters.

How has this been working? So far, the results look positive – we are able to incorporate more in to the products and services we offer because we talk to more customers and we are getting more referrals from customers using the new software.

We are getting out to more local state reporter events and advertising in their newsletters. Of course, we would love to be in all these places. That does take time, effort and money – we are trying to be good custodians of the funds our customers send us. This, to us anyway, means product and support first through personal contact, then advertising.

I hope this answers any concerns about our decisions to not be in the JCR and at the Mid-Year convention. I am pretty sure that we will be at the annual event this year, as we have been at them since 2000.

Again, thank you to everyone for your concern and input. If there is anything that we can do to help, please let us know.

Regards,

Don Miller
President/CEO
Cheetah International, Inc.

It's Out!!!

2007-03-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

We're all extremely excited here at Cheetah for the Release of SmartCAT version 2.4. This has been a real triumph in that we have been able to incorporate a TON of new functionality as well as improvements to the old.

Also, there's a new CATChat up. You can find it here.

All the best,

- Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations & Director of Marketing

You'd Better Get Moving!

2007-01-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Last night, PC World announced that it will no longer sell floppy disks.

We sit here on the heels of the announcement of Windows Vista, we're seeing 64 bit computers being released and it's never been more evident that the technology industry is moving forward and letting go of it's beloved tools of the past.

Here at Cheetah, *we know* that you loved TurboCAT. *We know* that your old laptop has been a trooper and given you reliable service for many years, producing lots of transcripts and supporting your livelihood. *We know* that the prospect of buying a new computer, buying new software and taking a day and a half out of your weekend to do training is daunting at best.

SmartCAT painless and easy. Our customers report that it takes about 10% of the time to learnFor these reasons, we have worked very very hard to make your transition from TurboCAT to SmartCAT that it did for them to learn SmartCAT years ago.

Heck we even made the initial screen of SmartCAT look very much like TurboCAT did to make it easier for you to feel comfortable:

If you have questions about making the move to SmartCAT, please give us a call. We'd be happy to give you references of our delighted customers, outline a bit about our company philosophy, heck we'll even encourage you to talk with our software and product developers!

As always, we can be reached at 800.869.6986.

All the best,

Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations & Director of Marketing

SmartCAT (TurboCAT for Windows) Maintenance, Part 2!

2007-01-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

As a follow up to Monday's post, I forgot one key concept about paying maintenance for SmartCAT (TurboCAT for Windows) Maintenance, Part 2!

We have a bit of a conundrum.... If we excel and do a truly extraordinary job making SmartCAT exactly as our customers would like it, then you think you don't need us. When you think you don't need us, you go off maintenance, thinking, "the software does what I need and I don't call tech support". Then, since you don't pay maintenance, we don't have the resources we need to continue to do our job and stay in business. Then, we're not around to serve you when you need us!

This real-life example played out in the previous iteration of Cheetah years ago (though our customers dearly loved TurboCAT, they didn't stay on maintenance en masse and Cheetah went bankrupt!). Fortunately, we've worked really hard and created a great Windows-based replacement in SmartCAT, so let's learn from our past such that we're not condemned to repeat it!

All the best,

Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operation & Director of Marketing
Cheetah International, Inc.

Why Pay for Maintenance?

2007-01-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

I've also been getting some great calls from customers that would like to talk about their maintenance contracts, and it brings to light several points that we take for granted that our customers may not.

Some of those conversations go something like this:

"I already paid $3,495 and know how to use my software, why should I be on maintenance?"

Well, there are a few reasons. First-and-foremost is that about 85% of your $595 maintenance contract goes toward product development, *not* tech support! Commonly, people believe that their maintenance contract covers things like late-night emergency calls. However, there are currently 87,678 lines of very complicated code in SmartCAT. Each time we make changes to that code, it requires extensive unit testing, load testing, functional overview and certification testing, documentation, the creation of support mechanisms as well as guru-level training for tech support people as well as introductory-, intermediate- and advanced-level trainings for customers.

Additionally, in terms of pricing, the actual total cost of SmartCAT is not $3,495, but more toward the $8,000 to $10,000 range. We actually spread that cost out as $3,495 up-front and then $595 per year for 8 years or so, meaning that until we recoup closer to ~$10,000, we have actually lost money.

From another context, we are getting lots of confirmation that we are adding a heck of a lot of value to our customers via SmartCAT(TM). Funnily enough, one reason we know this is that we'll occasionally offer to take 2% of the total reporting, editing and scoping revenues that SmartCAT(TM) allows reporters to earn in lieu of $595 maintenance. Not surprisingly, our suspicions have been confirmed time and time again that the $595 is significantly less than even the 2% of the annual revenues that SmartCAT(TM) aids in creating!

When I first started at Cheetah, I thought, "goodness, $3,495 is a fair bit more than Windows costs, yet Microsoft is making money hand-over-fist, yet Cheetah is a small, mom-and-pop-type company, why is that?". The answer is primarily in the industry. Microsoft defrays its development, testing, training and support costs over TENS OF MILLIONS of customers.
To contrast, the total court reporting industry is about 60,000 people, which is then divided up between the major software providers.

Remarkably, however, by being in very close contact with our customers (did you know we place approximately 3,000 proactive phone calls per month to extend help to our customers?), we've essentially been able to deliver nearly customized, million-dollar software for a third-of-a-percentage of that cost!

Consider it in these terms: SmartCAT(TM) allows you to create, edit and print transcripts in a very short amount of time. Our customers tell us that one medium-sized job can easily net $400 to $500. To this, our customers tell us they can totally pay for the software outright in a mere 7 or 8 jobs. From then on out, their annual maintenance contracts are only 1 to 2 jobs per year.

All the best,

- Greg L. Richardson
VP of Operations and Director of Marketing

The New Office and What We've Been Up To

2006-11-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Things have been pretty neat here at Cheetah. From the business standpoint, we moved to our new location in Denver. Our new address is 655 Broadway Suite 950, Denver, CO 80203. We were able to do it in such a way that people left work from the old location in Westminster one night and seamlessly came to work the next morning with zero interruption in service, projects etc.... The new space is 4 or 5 times larger than our last one! The expansion has made such a difference!

Here are a couple of pictures of our new digs:

and

Additionally, we're just completing an extensive source-mapping of SmartCAT. What this means is that we've had Keanan and Oren go through and read every one of the ~85,000 lines of code in SmartCAT and document what it does. This fortifies our level of institutional expertise and will set the groundwork for our already crack-team of tech support gurus to go to the next level of brilliance!

Again, thank you to all of our wonderful, loyal customers who have been so supportive as we grow and expand our operations.

To this, if you're a court reporter and interested in picking up a bit of extra work doing some sales and/or training work for us, drop me a line at gregr@cheetahinternational.com.

All the best!

- Greg

Our new office!

2006-09-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Cheetah is moving into a new office in the heart of downtown denver!
Please forgive the mess, we're moving!)

view from the front door

view from the southeast corner

view from the southwest corner

Update!

2006-06-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Times stay very exciting here at Cheetah. If you hadn't seen, we now have SmartCAT(TM) version 2.2.2 available on our updates page. This update ushers in:

Added Stentura/Smartwriter stability enhancements for realitme
Created help file links for several program dialogs
New "Where to Start" and "Windows Tutorials" topics in help file
Removed "Page Number Begins on Page..." message
Debugging info consolidated into one log
Global execution now not allowed with empty "To:" field
Optimized file backups and job properties (increased speed and stability)
New import ASCII transcript feature opens the ASCII import utility
Smart Word Endings is now on by default in new installs
Unimplemented options removed from "Import Notes" Dialog
Several Menu Improvements
"Refresh Job Window" function added
"Line number format" removed
"Send To" Work directory option added to right-click context menu
New (optional) purple color scheme

Let us know if there's anything we can do for ya,

- Greg

Multi-Headers

2006-06-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

We're hard at work here at Cheetah, making small adjustments and improving SmartCAT(TM).

First, we have created a new application that will allow you to have unlimited headers in your Page-Image-ASCII. If you want it, just click HERE.

Second, We're just finishing up the installer for the next version of SmartCAT, (probably to be called version 2.2.2). It contains MANY exciting and useful updates. Watch this space or http://www.cheetahinternational.com/English/Support/Downloads.html#SmartCATUpdates for more information!

Take care,

- Greg Richardson
VP of Operations, Cheetah International

Welcome to our Blog!

2006-06-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We've recently started this blog to let you know what we're up to at Cheetah International.

Most recently in SmartCAT (TM), we've updated our dll to gracefully handle Stentura 6000 and Stentura 8000 errors. Thank you to our numerous beta-testers who have already manned countless hours on this new dll and have reported 100% success! Essentially, if you've had *any* troubles using a Stentura in SmartCAT (TM), please let us know and we'll get you the new dll and it will almost certainly resolve your issues.

With questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support (at) cheetahinternational.com or take a look at our userforums.

All the best!

- Greg Richardson
VP of Operations