About Acovox
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Acovox was initially set up in September 2007 with the help of Invest NI
and acceptance on the 'Transform Programme' - a cross-border scheme to
help and guide 'entrepreneurs'. Our first product is an online,
real-time, monitoring and alerting system for the domiciliary or
homecare sector. It uses landline telephones to verify care workers
are in the clients' homes.
The original system was enhanced to provide scheduling so that we
could offer a more complete solution from timesheets and scheduling,
to monitoring and alerts.
We also realised that some clients may wish to have an online
timesheet system for storing, collating and reporting on timesheets.
So TimesheetsOnline was created as an entry-level product.
We wanted a system that was minimal hassle for our customers and
for ourselves, that is why we choose to create an online system.
An online system has many advantages over a traditional "installed"
computer system both for customers and for ourselves. It provides more
flexibility to our customers as the system is
multi-user, available 24/7 and can run
on customers' existing computers. It also allows customers
to work from the office, at home or on the move. For us it means
we can do backups and upgrades more easily as everything is in
one central location. It also reduces support costs as we don't have
to travel to our customers to fix problems.
Online systems differ from 'installed' systems in that we provide the
hosting. This means we carry the costs of running servers, doing back ups
and upgrading. We also provide the 0800 numbers which are relatively high
cost. Essentially, we provide a service rather than a product, and
we have unintentionally entered into the 'SaaS' (Software as a Service)
model, which seems so popular now. For our customers it means that instead
of buying an expensive software product, they are subscribing to a service,
and they can pay for that monthly or annually, so initial costs are lower.
Our phone system makes use of the latest 'Voice-Over-IP' technology
which means low costs. The web system was developed using the
latest Microsoft ASP.NET products.
All of our systems are developed In-House, so this gives us complete
control over the future development of features.
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