DecoNetwork and Microsoft showcasing latest in touch-screen kiosk technology at ISS Long Beach

Posted by Brenden Prazner on

Sydney, Australia: January 16, 2012 – DecoNetwork Pty. Ltd. and Microsoft Corporation will showcase the latest in touch-screen kiosk technology at the ISS Long Beach (CA, USA) tradeshow between January 20th and 22nd 2012 at booth 465.

On display will be DecoKiosk™, a ‘design your own’ touch-screen kiosk powered by the DecoNetwork platform, Microsoft® Surface™ technology and CorelDRAW® graphics capability.

This innovative solution allows consumers to personalize products on any Windows®-based touch-screen device such as portable tablet or wide-screen monitor and is managed remotely from anywhere in the world through the DecoNetwork platform.

As an add-on to a DecoNetwork subscription, DecoKiosk can be a complementary sales tool in a busy printer’s showroom to assist with order taking. It can also be remotely positioned in an airport lounge for self-serving consumers to purchase those last minute personalized gifts.

“In my 30 years in the industry this is by far the most exciting time to be in” explains Martin Kristiaman, CEO of DecoNetwork. “This technology is the future of the decoration industry at a time when each of us carry our own touch-screen device in our pocket every day. DecoKiosk literally puts personalization into the hands of consumers, dramatically reducing the cost of producing mass customization and personalization quantity one.”

“Our customers who have trialled DecoKiosk are extremely excited about the possibilities and are forming whole new business models around this ground-breaking step forward in the custom decoration industry.”

DecoKiosk is available for pre-order as an add-on to the DecoNetwork platform.

For other DecoNetwork press releases please visit www.deconetwork.com/press.

Exciting news at DecoNetwork with announcement of joint venture

Posted by Brenden Prazner on

We’d like to share some exciting news at DecoNetwork.

1. We have a new website! Check it out at www.DecoNetwork.com

2. We’ve excited to announce the formation of DecoNetwork Pty. Ltd, a  company established to develop and support the DecoNetwork platform.

This new company will be headed up by Martin Kristiaman, former CEO of Wilcom International, and continue its innovative development of DecoNetwork and DecoKiosk,  a ‘design your own’ touch-screen kiosk that integrates directly with the DecoNetwork platform.

Below is the full copy of the official press release:

 

Joint venture established for DecoNetwork

Sydney, Australia: January 13, 2012 – PikiCentral Pty Ltd and Wilcom Pty Ltd today announce a joint venture in the formation of a new, independent entity, DecoNetwork Pty Ltd, to develop and manage the DecoNetwork platform.

The companies’ joint efforts to date on the DecoNetwork platform have established it as a market leader and the partners felt that the time was right to formally consolidate the success to date in a joint venture. A key aspect of this decision was to merge the relevant resources from Wilcom and PikiCentral into a new entity to enable a rapid expansion of the DecoNetwork platform.

Martin Kristiaman former CEO of Wilcom, will become CEO of DecoNetwork Pty Ltd (effective December 1, 2011). The vacancy created in Wilcom from this move is being filled on an interim basis by Four Bells Advisory Pty Ltd, an independent advisory group commissioned to undertake an internal review of Wilcom’s businesses as the first stage of the 2012 strategic plan. It is envisaged that a search for a permanent new CEO for Wilcom will commence early in the New Year and (given Wilcom’s market leading position in this space) a strong candidate is expected to be appointed during Q1.

“The early success of DecoNetwork” Martin explains “has encouraged this joint venture partnership which will secure the future development of the platform, but also maximize the opportunities and demand we’re seeing for DecoNetwork.”

As a company DecoNetwork will focus on the core DecoNetwork platform that encompasses the DecoNetwork eCommerce website platform plus newly developed DecoKiosk, a ‘design your own’ touch-screen kiosk that brings personalization to the retail space.

As a part of this re-organization, Wilcom will become a key shareholder of the DecoNetwork Pty. Ltd. and be represented on the Board of Directors. Wilcom will maintain a close cooperative role in the future product development and direction of the DecoNetwork platform.

These changes announced today have been reached as a result of the necessity of bringing a close and supportive business relationship between PikiCentral and Wilcom to a more formalized and dedicated joint venture status.

Notes for Editors:

  • Formation of a new company (DecoNetwork Pty Ltd) dedicated to the future growth and development of DecoNetwork encompassing the eCommerce website platform and DecoKiosk.
  • Consolidating the development effort (currently spread between Wilcom and PikiCentral Pty Ltd) into the dedicated DecoNetwork business.
  • Substantial increases in resourcing for the development and marketing teams of DecoNetwork, comprising the key delivery staff from both Piki Central and Wilcom.
  • The DecoNetwork business will be led by Martin Kristiaman (who is transitioning from his role as CEO of Wilcom to lead this project)
  • Continuation and refinement of the agreement for Wilcom to be the preferred distributor of the DecoNetwork and DecoKiosk products with the focus of that agreement to be entirely into the embroidery markets.

 

About Wilcom: In the decorated goods industry we are most renowned for the world’s best embroidery and print design software, utilized by leaders in Schiffli lace/fashion work, industrial sports/apparel decorations and popular in the home hobby/craft market. We provide business solutions and web services for the corporate business as well as the small business and retailers.

Wilcom is present in over 70 countries with products in over 12 languages and over 200,000 licensed customers. To provide the best-of- breed solutions we strive to continually produce quality products that is built with stability and ease-of-use for practical applications.

www.wilcom.com.au

 

About DecoNetwork (formerly PikiCentral): We are an innovative team of software and web developers, researchers, and decoration industry experts with strategic management that understands the importance of marketing, quality and superior service.

Our passion is to translate our creative genius into a vastly scalable service with a unique business model empowering our business partners, affiliates, associates and passionate users to grow their business through enhanced services to their audiences.

www.DecoNetwork.com

 

About Four Bells Advisory: Four Bells Advisory understands that organisations seeking capital or other forms of value recognition for their business need to be well prepared and presented in an “investment ready” state. We specialize in working with clients over an extended period to prepare their companies so that they are ready and able to be invested in, sold or listed on a stock exchange. Our work involves three main areas:

  • Review and test of business assumptions reassess assumptions and strategy for achieving value in the enterprise, ensure validity of business model(s).
  • Deep understanding of the due diligence imperatives, the financial aspects of all plans, results and strategies going forward.
  • Building of strategies, plans and models that clearly demonstrate the potential of the business for investment ready opportunities.
  • Establishment of unquestionable corporate governance processes, standards and operations including functioning of an appropriate Board of Directors and executive responsibilities.

www.fourbells.com.au

For this and future DecoNetwork press releases please visit www.DecoNetwork.com/press

Marketing Banner Walkthrough

Posted by Greg on

Happy New Year to all the DecoNetwork blog readers.
There is no better way to start the year than to show you something that will really really improve your stores – the marketing banner.

Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Looking at making this available either late this week or early next.

Do your customers have problems viewing your website in Internet Explorer?

Posted by Brenden Prazner on

Do you find that some of your customers who use an old version of Internet Explorer have problems using your website? Besides being the slower of the major browsers,  Internet Explorer also lacks support for many HTML and CSS methods used on many websites in the modern internet. The result is either a poor browsing experience for the user or quite simply the website doesn’t work.

This is particularly true for rich website applications like DecoNetwork. So how to we inform your users that their old Internet Explorer is not only affecting their browsing experience but could actually be compromising their security on the Internet? (and yes, older version of Internet Explorer are less secure). Or as Microsoft puts it:

There are many benefits of upgrading to a newer version of Internet Explorer – improved speed, tabbed browsing, and better privacy settings to name a few.

The web has changed significantly over the past 10 years. The browser has evolved to adapt to new web technologies, and the latest versions of Internet Explorer help protect you from new attacks and threats.

This juicy snippet comes from a site Microsoft put together at http://www.ie6countdown.com that tracks the use of IE 6 and educates their customers to move on. Even Microsoft are asking their users to let Internet Explorer 6 die peacefully.

We can also do our part. Here is a small snippet you can insert into your DecoNetwork website that will create a small floating DIV at the top of your site and warn your customers about their old browser. The great thing about this snippet is it will appear on every page to remind the user “IT’S NOT MY SITE… IT’S YOU!!!!!!!!!!”

It looks like this:

How do you do it?

Simple!

In your DecoNetwork website browse Manage Store > Appearance > Customize Template HTML.

Select the Custom Layout tab check Override default layout:

Scroll down the custom HTML and locate the <body> tag.

Insert a few carriage returns after <body> and past the following HTML:

<!--[if lt IE 8 ]>
<div id="oldbrowser">
OH NO! You're using an old web browser. We strongly recommend you update to a modern web browser such as <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/firefox" target="_blank"><b>FireFox</b></a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome" target="_blank"><b>Google Chrome</b></a> to improve your browsing experience and your <b>online security</b>.
</div>
<![endif]-->

Change the content to suit what you want to say.

The <!–[if lt IE 8 ]> section controls what version of IE this will show for. In my case I have it set to show in versions LOWER than Internet Explorer 8. In other words for IE 7, 6, 5 and heaven forbid 4 and below. If you want it to show for all Internet Explorer versions then change it to <!–[if IE ]>. Check out some other great Internet Explorer conditional comments at http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/conditionalcomments.

Click Update to save your changes.

Next we need to style the floating DIV and ensure it always stays at the top of the page and can be easily seen.

Browse Manage Store > Appearance > Customize Template CSS.

Select the Create Custom CSS tab and paste in the following CSS:

#oldbrowser {
     width:100%;
     position: fixed;
     z-index: 99;
     background: #FFCC00;
     height: 20px;
     color: #444444;
     font-size: 12px;
     padding:5px;
}

#oldbrowser a {
     color:#000000;
}

Finally you need to ensure your new floating bar does not overlap any other content on your site like your login links and currency selector. To do this we ‘push’ your website down the same height as your floating bar (30px).

Add this CSS to your Create Custom CSS tab:

#container {
margin-top: 30px;
}

Click Save CSS to save your changes and BINGO! You are now a loyal fighter to modernize the internet world :)

V4.03 – Sneak Peek – Create a “freeform” line item

Posted by Greg on

First off, what do I mean by “freeform line item”?

Well many of you may already know, in Business Hub (Order management within Deconetwork) when you add a product is has defined meta data (sizes, colors, images) associated with it already. A freeform line item has no meta data associated to it, its a simple line item.

So a freeform line item is about “freedom” and speed.
A freeform line item allows you to define the name of the product you want to use, give it a description and a price, thats it, simple and fast.

The definition of that product is not saved and it can no be re-used.

Here is how you add a freefrom line item.
First make sure you are in Business Hub, click “Orders” -> “DecoNetwork Business Hub“.

Then click “quotes”.

The click:  “add quote”.

Now we are going to add the freeform line item, click “add product”.

A dropdown appears.

at the bottom of the dropdown, one of the options is “define new product”, click this.

A pop appears where you can select the type of product you want to define. Select “Add freeform line item” and click continue.

That is it, a new freeform line item is added to your order, now fill out the details.

  • Name – Enter the name of the item.
  • Description – Enter a basic description the customer will see.
  • Unit Price – Enter the single unit price for the product.
  • Qty – Enter a qty

It is that easy. This means you can now add any line item on the fly without having to setup a product definition. This means you can start using Business Hub for all aspects of your business.

Shoot me any questions and good luck deco-ing ;) .

Greg

DecoNetwork Business Hub is now transaction free!

Posted by Brenden Prazner on

DecoNetwork is three years old and we owe our success to our awesome customers like you.

To thank you DecoNetwork is removing the 1.85% transaction fee from Business Hub until June 30, 2012. Enjoy the benefits of our industry’s leading quote, order & invoice management system NOW!

Check out our Business Hub video – Click here!

Sneek peak: Dynamic promotional banner

Posted by Brenden Prazner on

Oh and it certainly is the season of giving! We just had to give you just one more preview of a new feature in the works.

It’s a dynamic promotional banner that you configure on your DecoNetwork website. A quick summary
about the new feature:

  • A new widget available in Website pages.
  • The content is completely configurable.
  • All HTML and CSS so lots of juicy content for SEO.
  • NOT Flash!
  • Totally awesome!

Keep your eyes posted to the blog for a release annoucement!