January 24, 2012 – Today we’re introducing CounterGo, a new way to quote countertops. With CounterGo you draw a countertop, and the price is automatically calculated. You can turn a customer’s napkin sketch into a professional looking drawing, quote, and slab layout. All in just a few minutes. Before the customer leaves your showroom.

Most countertop fabricators tell us creating quotes is one of the worst parts of their job. It takes too much time. And yet it’s critical to the business. Hand-drawn sketches are time-consuming to make and hard to read.

How do you know if a kitchen needs two slabs or three? It’s difficult to be sure unless you lay out the pieces on the slab. It’s even harder to show customers why they’re paying for an extra slab.

We built CounterGo to address these problems.

CounterGo is an online service that requires only an internet connection and a web browser to use. Just like Moraware JobTracker that you may be using already. And CounterGo integrates into JobTracker. So you won’t have to re-enter customer information between quotes and jobs.

CounterGo is currently available by invitation only. If you’d like to get on the list for early access, please contact us at 866-312-9273 or sales@moraware.com.

About Moraware
Moraware has been making software for countertop fabricators since 2002. JobTracker is scheduling software that helps you eliminate the time you waste looking for job folders. RemnantSwap is a free place to buy and sell countertop remnants with fabricators near you.

Contact Information
Harry Hollander
Moraware
866-312-9273 x802
harry@moraware.com
www.moraware.com

From January 24-26, we’ll be at StonExpo in Las Vegas. Booth 1247.

We’ll be officially announcing our new countertop estimating software, so please come by our booth to see a demo and find out more.

In addition to our own news, I’m looking forward to several of the education seminars. If you’re interested in online marketing, I really recommend Marty Gould’s courses. I wrote some notes from his marketing talk at a Stone Industry Education seminar in Denver.

I also like the Residential Countertop Fabricators Forum – it’s impressive how fabricators are willing to discuss their successes, and failures, in front of their peers and competitors.

Stone World magazine will be announcing their Fabricator of the Year. I’m hoping to see another Moraware JobTracker user get the honor.

And this year, StonExpo is also doing a daily cash prize giveaway. Looks pretty cool. Of course, cash has a way of disappearing quickly in Las Vegas.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at Mandalay Bay. Booth 1247.

Want to know more? At Moraware, we make software for countertop fabricators. JobTracker is scheduling software that helps you eliminate the time you waste looking for job folders. RemnantSwap is a free place to buy and sell stone remnants with fabricators near you.

In 2003, Moraware exhibited at its first trade show. We got questions like “Do you do drawing?” We were pretty clear about the answer. “No, we’ll never do that.”

Well, you should never say never.

At StonExpo, in Las Vegas from January 24-26, we’ll be showing software for drawing and estimating countertops. And it integrates with Moraware JobTracker, too.

Why are we doing this now?

Over the last 9 years we’ve seen other countertop drawing programs come and go. All of them were slow or really difficult to use. But we kept hearing that making fast, professional quotes is critical to any countertop business. So, we built CounterGo.

What is it?

With CounterGo you draw a countertop, and the price is automatically calculated.

All in just a few minutes. Before the customer leaves your showroom.

You can turn a customer’s sketch into a professional drawing, quote, and slab layout.

When can I see it?

Join us at StonExpo, in Las Vegas from January 24-26. Or if you can’t make it, call us at 866-312-9273 or email sales@moraware.com

CounterGo is currently available by invitation only. If you want to be on the early access list, sign up here:

On September 14th, we’re going to be in Jessup, MD as one of the sponsors of the Marble Institute Stone Industry Education seminar series. We’re excited to be a part of this, and we’re looking forward to seeing many of our DC and Baltimore area users.

The management class will be led by MIA President GK Naquin and is geared towards countertop business owners and fabrication managers. Topics include:

• Analyzing the cost of doing business.
• Benchmarks for financial performance.
• Diversifying your operations.
• The impact of “digital age” technology.

You can purchase tickets on the http://www.stoneindustryeducation.com/ website.

…and happy hour!

Too busy on the 14th? No problem. If you think talking about scheduling software is easier with a beer in your hand, please join us for happy hour on September 13th.

We’re having an informal get-together of Moraware users at McGinty’s Pub in Silver Spring, MD. We’ll be there at around 6pm, and we’re looking forward to meeting you in person.

This year at the Coverings show in Vegas, we had a drawing for an iPad 2. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the iPad 2 is just the hottest tablet computer of the year from Apple. It was great to be able to offer this kind of cool new technology.

One of the uses that we’re really excited about is the “shop users” in Moraware JobTracker. You can mount an iPad or any touch-screen tablet in your shop and allow the folks in production to update the status of jobs. That way, you can know what’s going on in fabrication without ever leaving the office.

Anyway, despite the offers of bribes in the forms of beer, chocolate, and even a foot massage… we put all of the names in a hat… and the winner is…Concepción Castro Roman Hernandez!!

Concepción and her husband Seve own Seven Stones, Inc. in Torrance California. Seven Stones fabricates Granite, Marble, Silestone, and a variety of other natural stone and quartz countertops. Congratulations!

We’re exhibiting at the StonExpo Marmomacc Americas trade show January 25-27, 2011.  This year, the show is being held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV.

Come join us at booth #B1281 – we’ll be showing off the latest and greatest updates to Moraware JobTracker.  And, we might have a surprise or two as well.

If you register before December 16, 2010, you’ll get free admission to the exhibits and education sessions.  Since StonExpo is co-located with Surfaces, you also get to see the floor covering industry’s biggest show at the same time.

Also, here are a few tips.  We’ve exhibited at countertop and stone industry shows at the Mandalay Bay many times, and we’ve gotten a few ideas from being here.

1. Stay at theHotel.  In general, the rooms are bigger and newer than the regular Mandalay Bay rooms, and you’ll save yourself lots of walking from the room to the convention center.
2. Have a drink at Mix.  The view is awesome, and even if you’re not hip to spending over $90 for dinner, having a beer on the patio is a great way to relax from a day of work or prepare for a night of fun.
3. Don’t forget your swimsuit.  After a day of being on your feet, there’s nothing more relaxing than going for a float in the lazy river at the Mandalay Bay Beach pool area.
4. Drink water.  Between being in the desert, talking to other stone fabricators all day long, and staying out late – it’s incredibly important to stay hydrated, but really easy to forget this simple rule.

Las Vegas is a fun place for a trade show, and we’re glad that we can promote free admission for StonExpo.  Don’t forget to register before December 16th, and we’ll see you there!

We’re sponsoring the MIA Leadership Workshop in Dallas, TX October 18-19, 2010 and we’re going to be there to chat with some stone industry leaders about the future of the market.

Being involved in this seminar  seems like the perfect opportunity to promote the things we care about – how to make your countertop company a better business.  Although we love the usual trade-show focus on automation and tools in the shop, we’ve found that what happens in the front office is as important to the long-term success of countertop fabricators.

The workshop includes a welcome reception on Monday night, followed by a full day of speakers and a roundtable discussion during the hosted lunch.  The four main topics are:

1. Selling stone as an environmentally friendly material,
2. Predictions about the future of the industry,
3. Leading through style and design,
4. and Branding.

I’m really excited to hear some new perspectives and gain some new insights into the industry.  You can find registration and hotel information, here.

We’re really excited to be participating in the Stone Fabricator’s Alliance Mega-Workshop outside of St. Louis, October 7-9, 2010!

The event is going to take place at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, IL.  You can find hotel information, here.   It looks like the show will be lots of fun, and there will be an interesting twist on the typical trade-show floor demonstrations.

At the workshop we will be working with the local
Habitat for Humanity and actually fabricate real
kitchens for a few very lucky homeowners. That’s right,
we are going to build real kitchens using the latest in
stone processing gear. Demos that makes sense and
granite that does not wind up in a dumpster at the end
of the show.

For those of you who are motivated by less noble interests, there will also be a band and beer on Friday night.  At our booth, you’ll get to see the latest updates to Moraware JobTracker, and mingle with other countertop fabricators who’ve gotten organized with our software.

See you there!

I went to visit the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta, which was an amazingly huge trade show.  There were about 1000 exhibitors and probably over 10,000 attendees.  Many of the large stoneworking CNC manufacturers and digital templating providers were there; it was good to catch up with friends in the industry.

In conjunction with IWF, I attended the ISFA countertop symposium.  It was a panel discussion about the  increasing overlap between woodworking and countertop fabrication.  My favorite presentation was about trends and predictions in the industry – I had no idea that laminate tops still dominate, or how quickly quartz surfaces have grown over the past few years.  You’ll be able to read about it in Countertops & Architectural Surfaces magazine.

In my spare time I was lucky enough to visit a few customer’s shops.  It’s always helpful to see our software being used live and being able to chime in with an answer or a tip.  Plus, we learn how we can improve JobTracker.

First, I went to see Stone Solutions, located in Marietta, GA.  Stone Solutions was founded in 1999 as an installation company, and started fabricating their own material in 2003.  They work with some large home centers, but while I was visiting they also had walk-in business.

Their office was really lean; it turns out that their salespeople are on the road most of the time.  They make extensive use of smart phones – both for email and to access Moraware JobTracker.  Over the course of a day, they come in and out of the office, but they’re always accessible no matter where they are.

Next, I visited Architectural Stone Accents in Atlanta.  They’ve been working with us since 2004, so it was quite nice to finally meet them in person, and see the office and shop.  The owners and several employees of ASA are originally from Brazil, and I really enjoyed overhearing conversations in Portuguese while I was visiting.  Although I didn’t understand a word, it made everything sound great.

In addition to doing residential remodels and work for dealers and big-box stores, ASA has grown into some commercial projects, and opened a second location, in Alabama.

Finally, I went to Oldcastle Surfaces.  Founded almost 30 years ago as Custom Surfaces, the company was recently acquired by Oldcastle, a diversified building materials and products company.  In addition to the 100,000 sq. ft. shop I visited, they have multiple locations in Georgia, Alabama, and North and South Carolina.

Running a company this large and diverse has only been able to happen because of their continual improvement and adoption of new technology.  Because of digital templates and access to Moraware from anywhere with a wireless data card, the templaters that work for Oldcastle hardly ever come into the office.  Occasionally, they’ll need to deliver a sink, but they can go for months without being seen by the folks at the shop.

One of the jobs I saw being fabricated in the solid-surface division was a large commercial job for delivery – to China.  That totally surprised me, but it turns out that for certain types of military or governmental work, there’s no substitute for high-quality American goods.

Thanks again to everyone who opened up their shops to me.  I totally enjoyed the experience, we felt it was mutually valuable, and we’re going to figure out how to do more of this.