The timing was remarkable. A planned data conversion was quickly accelerated on Friday afternoon with deadly tornadoes bearing down on the community of Fulton, Miss. ePolk, Inc. the Winter Haven-based technology firm, was on schedule to convert the Wallace Company’s database from Wallace’s own server in Fulton to the Cloud. The “Cloud” is a technological term referring to hosted services in a secured, offsite data center. Just hours before the scheduled data upload, the customer called to explain that a tornado warning and evacuation notice had been issued.
Mike Kingham, President of ePolk went right to work. Once he determined that the customer was safe, he said “Let’s do it now!” Kingham knew that if tornadoes damaged the client’s office, all data stored on an in-house server could be lost. Kingham was able to remotely access the client’s database and retrieve the stored information before the Wallace Company staff evacuated.
Just a few days earlier, ePolk’s client had contacted the technology firm seeking secure offsite backup for their operating system. ePolk offered the Wallace Company a Cloud-based program. The approaching storm served to reinforce Kingham’s words as he said, “This is exactly the reason you need to be in the Cloud.” Kingham explained that using the Cloud will allow work to continue from any location with Wi-Fi access, using a remote device such as a laptop or iPad-type thin client. “It is the best way to ensure operational integrity and business continuity,” said Kingham. Fortunately, Fulton was spared the wrath of the deadly storm and ePolk’s client is not only physically safe, but virtually safe as well.
Way back in 1993 we were hired to write a factoring program for a local factoring company called 'Bay Area Factors'. They were using a spreadsheet to track the invoices that they factored and their bank, which held their line of credit, was nervous about them using an accounting system with no controls or audit trails.
And so the frist version of our software was born. After the software was completed, Bay Area Factors encouraged us to start selling the product to the factoring industy. The ACFA was hosting a factoring convention in Atlanta later that year and we registered to attend. But first, we had to come up with a name. At the time, the fact that our software was windows based was novel, so we called it WinFactor.
The irony is that today, many people feel that a Windows based program is a bit 'old school', compared to their web based peers. Note to self: in the future, try not name a product based on its technology. Technology moves fast and most of our techie catch phrases have a short shelf life!
