Product enhancement is development that are leading to additional or improved product features. The result is features and functions for the benefit of the user.

Please notice that we distinguish between enhancement and maintenance. Product maintenance, as part of the guaranteed product service in most of our license agreements, produces fixes to problems that are internal or relating to other units defined by the system (e.g. an other software of which we integrate data, or misc. government regulations)

But with product enhancements, which we produce lots of, is important to bear in mind that we do not guarantee any of these enhancements. Even the ones you may find higly useful for your business. It has to be this way since enhancements for products of high quality and usability often raise serious costs during development.

Still, NetStorm has carefully formed ways of dealing with such costs. Either alone or in cooperation with customers. Some times a proposed enhancement (new type of report etc.) may be significant for one customer. At other times NetStorm may decide that certain enhancements are important, for the product to gain increased response in the market.

We will have to consider each "enhancement candidate" separately. No matter the size of a software vendor's enhancement budget, a queuing system of development issues has to be applied. Issue priority is based on a weighed total of functional value, development cost, market appliance, and any negative impact a solution may have on other parts of the system (e.g. complexity of use).

Here is a summary of our "Product Enhancement Programme" process:

1. A brief issue description is entered in a ShipView forum post, by NetStorm personnel if initiated by NetStorm, or by the user if initiated by the customer (or by NetStorm if preferred, after teleconferencing/e-mail).
2. The issue is examined, and needed details, along with sample, are added.
3. The issue is queued for development.
4. The customer can accelerate development if sharing development costs. (typically 20-50%)
5. If the development leads to something that can be used for other customers as well, the paying customer will be paid back during future edition upgrades.

Feel free to contact us for further details.