On April 1st? 
Exactly what I thought.
Not sure what to think… ..
I used to work for a big software company. Although they sell it like a partnership and nothing is going to change to not spook users, sounds to me like it will be the Spectora platform that will be eventually swallowing up Home Gauge users. They will probably add a few useful (needed) functions to Spectora that Home Gauge users like and use, then probably build a migration strategy / tools to start encouraging Home Gauge users to migrate voluntarily.
Supporting desktop software on a myriad of Windows platforms is a costly pain-in-the-rump, much easier to support a hosted platform. So, the HomeGauge desktop software will be the first salvo, with the die-hard holdouts eventually forced to migrate.
With the same software base and more users, the combined company will be more profitable than both of the two companies now. Hence, the real reason for the acquisition.
Not me I will definitely not migrate. I’ll continue to use the HD desktop version I have and save all my reports in PDF. I don’t need any Outsiders to do that.
Many agents I work with do not like Spectora reports, at least the way they’re used in my area. Which are typically 100 page reports with a bunch of fluff.
Ditto that.
I expect they’ll soon start to roll-out changes to the “platform” including shutting down legacy HG software support.
I have no real idea, but I would be surprised if they do much that affects the actual functionality of either platform for quite some time. Could it happen eventually? I suppose. But I don’t se them doing anything drastic for quite a while.
Perhaps, but I’m more of a cynic, especially as it relates to HI software. In the short time the industry has been maturing, big corporate “mergers” or acquisitions are unfolding fast.
And besides, they didn’t buy it or acquire it just to do nothing.
On the bright side, I believe HG was owned by an insurance company. So, at least one less inspection report platform is now owned by an insurance company.
And I used to write software for a multi-national manufacturer. What you’ve said is what will happen. It is not tenable to support two front and back end code bases. As I stated in a prior post, the back end is not visible so that will change first. A translator of sorts will be written and eventually all the old HG back of the house servers will go dark.
Eventually the HG front end will start talking directly to the hosts sans translator. Ultimately behind the scenes both will behave pretty much identically even if it looks like the current HG. It’ll be essentially a Spectora engine with a HG skin on it. Then that will go away on a “big bright new update” at some point in the future.
This is going to take a LONG time though.
They could also just bomb it, invite folks over to Spectora and wash their hands of it, but I doubt that’s going to happen.
figured the real reason is to collect more data like home gauge already does.
That could be a big part of it… However, so far, I have not personally witnessed selling of customer data by Spectora (which would make me very displeased, so I have been on watch out). That could be the long-term plan of Radian Capital, of course.
Neither have I with HomeGauge. Not one single question or complaint from any clients or agents, ever. I think that’s mostly rumor.