FAQ 020 What’s the story of the company behind the FILMS, e-Library and v-Library “Freeware software”?

ANSWER

The owner of Functional Solutions is Michael Fernandez. Functional Solutions has been trading as a Melbourne based Christian Software company for more than 20 years and specialised in software for the manufacturing industry.

About 1996 when his children attended a small school in Mount Waverly Victoria, Australia the school was looking to purchase a library software license for $35,000 and an annual support fee of $5,000. The product in question was OCELOT and was sold and supported by Ferntree Computer Corporation in Melbourne.

Michael, as a parent of the school was asked to consult on the IT aspects of the software.

The software was DOS based and single user and came with a three user license. Michael offered to the school was to have Functional Solutions write a Windows based multiuser Library system and they could have it in 2 weeks and have it absolutely FREE of any cost or obligation. He saw it as an investment in his children and other children’s future.

The offer was accepted and two weeks later the school was in receipt of that Windows based multiuser Library Management System. It was called FILMS (Functional Integrated Library Management System.

Other educational institutions requested a copy of the FILMS software for their library and requested support, modifications, upgrades and additional reports for FILMS but because of budget constraints at the school were not able to pay for time and materials for the on going development. It was agreed between the very small number of users that they could each contribute $1,500 per year to have Functional Solutions support their school and library requirements.

Functional Solutions saw this arrangement where the user did the Research (at no cost) of their requirements and we the authors and developers did the development (at no cost) for the product as the ideal environment to mature and grow the product. This basic philosophy still continues today.

About 3 months after we installed our FILMS product in our first site we were approached by Ferntree to take on their OCELOT user base (about 80 users at the time). Ferntree offered Functional Solutions a cheque of $85,000 and the user base.

In line with our Christian beliefs we believed then (and still do believe) this was definitely a God given gift.

In view of this amazing gift and start in this business sector Functional Solutions made a commitment that we would NEVER EVER charge or sell our Library software. We committed we would never have any license fees or purchase cost for the use of our Library software.

We believed then that it is ‘more blessed to give then to receive’!

Today in 2011 and well into the future we see our users still doing our research and we doing the development.

We are absolutely committed NEVER to ever charge ANY Purchase, License or Upgrade fee for our software. FILMS, e-Library, v-Library and all our upgrades of software from Functional Solutions has always been free and will always will be free.

We have been blessed with amazing users who still do our amazing research that has made our product what it is today.

We continue to roll out incredible function and feature rich FREE upgrades at the rate of at least two a year.

At functional Solutions our belief is that “education is the right of every person regardless of their religious belief, ethnicity, colour of their skin or socio-economical background”!

In 2010 it’s been more than 16 years we have been servicing Libraries with free world class, robust, industrial strength Library Management Software. Our competitors said we would not last. 16 plus years later and not only are we still here in the market but growing at an incredible rate. We believe no other library management system can compare with the functions and features we provide. From an educational institution point of view, no other LMS or content management system comes even close on seamless transparent Digital Delivery, Multimedia Delivery, Federated Search functionality and Library Functionality. We put this challenge out to ANY institution comparing LMS Content Management and Digital Delivery systems in an open public forum.

Our viability is totally dependent upon the nominal support fees we charge sites wanting world class support at realistic prices especially considering declining education budgets and in particular Library budgets.

When we made the decision to go freeware software with nominal cost for world class support more than 16 years ago it was the right decision! History has now confirmed this with incredible success for Functional Solutions.

Organisations who use our software are not our customers; we sold them nothing! We see them as partners who use our software, do our research and pay us a small fee for world class support so we can continue developing the product based on their request and provide them with incredible continuous updates and upgrades absolutely free.

As a software company it’s a radical, incredible and successful business model where everyone is a winner.

Commercially we don’t fit into the mould of a Library software vendor that sells software or licenses and this tends to exclude us from responding to tenders where purchase price is a large deciding factor simply because our software is definitely free ( freeware ). However compare us on any function and feature matrix and we will come out way ahead of the pack of Library vendors.

In this digital age, Libraries are changing from traditional functions of managers of the printed word to “Global Resource Centres”. Patrons may never ever visit physically but want access Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Device. We are very confident of the future. Our emphasis is to help these partners of ours to evolve and become more relevant, current and viable in this digital age especially in the education sector.

We are radical and have a lot to offer libraries and education; best of all it's FREE !