(available with communications or as a pure multimedia authoring tool)
Amid all the clatter of excitement over the Internet, American business seems to have temporarily forgotten the beauty of a direct communications link. But Touchpoint hasn't. Using Touchpoint, your caller clicks on a custom icon that represents your company, is taken directly to your company's computer, and gets immediate and free access to your company's electronic storefront. Touchpoint takes care of both ends of this communications link. Its approach is so efficient that a one phone line system can handle 20 to 50 calls per hour. Touchpoint offers ease of use to both your callers and your company. Even a one-person operation can set up and maintain a system that looks like a million bucks.
The opening paragraph was written with much thought and effort quite a while ago. The truth is everybody is crazy about the Internet which makes Touchpoint with communications a hard sell. Even so, Touchpoint has a number of advantages if you meet some of the following conditions:
1) You serve a local audience. Since Touchpoint relies on regular phone lines, there are no inherent charges for you or your customers.
2) You serve a regular base of callers. Touchpoint is much faster and easier to manipulate than the Internet. AND, while looking at your material, callers can not browse the competition.
3) You have a limited amount of information to keep up to date. Touchpoint can keep an "electronic magazine" up to date by only sending material that is new since the last call. If logos, for example, have not changed, they will not be transmitted.
4) You are worried about security. Touchpoint only performs a dedicated set of functions which do not permit a caller to spy on your network. Calls are direct with no opportunity for intermediate machines to intercept data.
5) You don't have an enormous amount of time or money to spend on an electronic presence. The Touchpoint authoring tool is entirely WYSIWYG and simple and easy. You can even add Java type effects with just a couple of clicks. And since Touchpoint works on a screen basis rather than a page basis, your presentations will look very much the same for all resolutions. Touchpoint scales the elements in your screen to fit the space available.
6) You care about efficiency. Touchpoint will run modems at full-speed without pausing, and compression is built into the system. Neither you nor your callers ever worry about it.
In addition to a presentation, Touchpoint supports mail between you and your callers, file transfers, information and files on demand, and a host of other capabilities. It even supports awarding prizes to random callers based on a probability you specify. Retailers may find it a very interesting alternative advertising media.
Although we have an Internet presence, we use Touchpoint as our primary vehicle for tech support and keeping current customers and beta-testers up to date. It's so much easier to do things with Touchpoint than with either the Internet or a standard BBS. Touchpoint does not have umpteen different protocols.
Touchpoint is currently only available with a Windows client/server, so if your major target includes Mac users, we cannot recommend it.
The best way to learn about Touchpoint is simply to try it. If you click the reference below, you will download TPT.ZIP--a mere 82K. After decompressing it, you will run INST_TPT.EXE to install the client program. From there, when you are off the Internet, you simply need to run the program and "Dial In" into a computer that sits in our office. No membership in any service is required. (You can even get the client by calling the Server's number with the Windows communication program--Terminal (3.1) or Hyperterminal (95). That number is 408-370-2862. It's not hard, but you must be able to follow a few instructions to the letter. Giving customers a diskette is much easier.)
The client program, seeing that you have none of our "electronic magazine," will request approximately 60 pages with accompanying pictures and sounds. That will take a mere four minutes at 14.4K baud (the modem speed of the modems we have conntected). The magazine you get will explain Touchpoint in greater detail.
If you try it, we think you will see some forms and screens prepared with much less hassle, but much more interesting than what you see on the net.
Download The Windows Touchpoint Client
If you like to see the type of content you can prepare without having to access our server. You can download the the file below (175K). It installs a "communications-less" viewer along with a presentation. This technology can be used to easily prepare fun presentations or brochures for the Web or on disk. You can even attach a presentation to email. It's all compressed into a single file.
After downloading TPV.ZIP below, simply unzip it, and run the file INST_TPV.EXE. As noted, a presentation is bundled with the viewer software. Interested parties can arrange to try the authoring tool on a trial basis--send us email to that effect.