MERLINCO’s software has been used in the preparation of a book called “Using talk effectively in the primary classroom”, co-authored by Dr.Richard Eke of the University of the West of England who have, for many years, used MERLINPLUS to analyse data collected in educational studies. The following paragraph appears on the book’s Acknowledgements page.

'We have been fortunate in our analysis of classroom data, both here and in other places, to have been able to exploit the flexibility of the software 'Merlin' and have appreciated dialogue with Keith Hughes on its usage.'

 

 

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. Merlinco’s offices will close for Christmas at lunchtime on Friday 23rd December, and will re-open on Tuesday 3rd January 2012. Email will be checked periodically, so clients requiring software support during this period may email support@merlinco.co.uk. Meanwhile, we wish you all a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS and all the best for the New Year.

 

 

VERSION 9.3 of our software has been released. All our software modules are under continual development, and new builds are released to users via our website. New versions, however, represent major changes across all products – and at v9.3, the maximum length of variable names has been increased to 64. We have also introduced a direct export of tables to Adobe Acrobat “pdf” files, which is available in MTWA (MERLIN to Word and Acrobat). The new export runs much faster than the export to Word, produces smaller files, and does not require the user to have Adobe Professional.

 

 

On Thursday 24th November, Merlinco held a client party at The Soho Space, near Cambridge Circus. It is some years since we last hosted an event like this, and it gave us an opportunity to meet a number of clients for the first time – as well as renew old acquaintances. We are sorry that quite a lot of our clients were unable to join us, but we have had very positive feedback from those who did, and some requests to hold a similar event next year.

 

 

Kathy Abbott, our Production Director, has returned from maternity leave! Kay Drury, who ran the department in her absence, is also continuing to work for us, to cope with the growing volume of work. Please contact Kathy if you have any production requirements.

 

On June 29-30th, Merlinco had a stand at the Insight Show in Olympia. We were pleased to meet some of our clients there, and to make new acquaintances.

On Sunday 17 April Peter ran his sixth and final marathon. Having previously run Rome, Dublin, Paris, Budapest, and Nice to Cannes, he's hanging up his long-distance running shoes. "I started running late (in life - at 54)" said Peter. "It's so difficult to get into the London Marathon, but I was determined to do the biggest and best one in the world, so I managed to get a charity place. Having done work with the National Autistic Society I felt they were a very deserving cause, and the response from friends and family was fantastic. It is amazing how generous people have been, in sponsorship AND encouragement. After all the training runs in the cold and dark, the treadmill sessions, and the physio bills, the event itself was almost perfect weather, but became too hot. This left me with severe cramp to fight through for the final 7 miles, helped by fantastic support and the camaraderie. But the experience was absolutely wonderful, well worth the pain - to the beer at the end."

JOB VACANCY IN PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT. Merlinco are looking for someone with 1+ years experience using MERLIN or a similar survey analysis package. Please email your CV to John Tebboth

Merlinco directors, staff and freelancers recently had an enjoyable lunch together at the Rosemary Lane restaurant, which is near our office. We have used this venue several years running for a New Year celebration but, sadly, this will be the last time as the restaurant is closing in the summer.

Merlinco directors John Tebboth and Keith Hughes, both steam train enthusiasts, recently took a trip to Canterbury on a train hauled by an LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 locomotive (commonly known as the Black 5). Although most people associate MERLIN (the name of our main analysis package) with a magician … MERLIN was also a steam locomotive, and anyone visiting our offices can see a unique model of it!

(RE-)PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT SUCCESS! As usual, Merlinco's Production Director Kathy Abbott has been working late, and at 0010 am on 21st October, gave birth to JOSEPH ALEXANDER, who weighed in at 7lb.11oz. Mother and baby are doing well, and we are looking forward to seeing them. Meanwhile, at Merlinco, Kay Drury is running the Production Department while Kathy is on maternity leave.

FASTAB IS FREE. Our data exploration package for end-users is now free and can be downloaded from the FASTAB products page. A demonstration database is included, and other databases can be supplied by any MERLIN or MERLINPLUS user.

 

VERSION 9.2 of our software has been released. Our software is under continuous development, and clients can download new builds from our website – but new versions represent more significant changes. At v9.2 these include increased limits in all programs, but especially MERLIN, and the updating of MTPP to work with PowerPoint 2007 and 2010.

 

Basis Research, whose areas of expertise include segmentation, brand strategy, innovation, and communications, are our newest client, having bought a MERLIN licence

MORE at Insight Show! On June 29th and 30th, Merlinco were exhibiting their software at the Insight Show at Olympia, and launched their newest product. MORE (MERLIN Online Reporting Engine) enables users to produce tables and charts from online databases, such as those generated by our web interviewing software. Try it for yourself or click here for more information.

Research Now use MERLIN for new web-based application. Research Now, who have been using MERLIN for their in-house data processing for over 5 years, are developing a new web-based reporting system powered by MERLIN. The new system is called Online Reporting Tool, and will enable Research Now's clients to run their own simple tables and charts on-line. Users specify their tables through a graphical user interface, which generates a MERLIN script to analyse data held in MERLIN internal files. Although applications of this type are available commercially, Research Now decided to develop their own, using MERLIN because of their experience of its reliability and speed. Merlinco have added some new features at Research Now's request, most of which are of potential benefit to all MERLIN users..

Production Department expands. Minel Lakhani has joined Kathy in our Production Department. Minel has over 20 years experience in market research analysis, using MERLIN as well as CATI / CAWI packages. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, swimming and travelling.

NEW YEAR LUNCH. Merlinco have a tradition of holding a New Year Lunch for staff and consultants. This year (despite freezing weather conditions), the number attending rose to 12, and it was a good opportunity for everyone to meet Matt Long, who had joined our production department three days earlier.

City University have obtained MERLINPLUS Database for analysing data collected by OpinionPanel Research (who are MERLIN users), and are the 15th university to do so. Merlinco offer two packages for end-users of data - FASTAB and MERLINPLUS Database .

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. The Merlinco offices will be closed from December 25th to January 1st inclusive, re-opening as usual on Monday 4th January. Emails will be polled during the holiday period but, if you have an urgent enquiry, call our usual number +44 (0)870 264 6329 where there will be a recorded message giving an alternative contact number.

In a brief ceremony at an ASC meeting this month, Merlinco’s development director Keith Hughes was awarded Lifetime Honorary Membership of the ASC. This elite body of honourees (previously consisting of only eight persons) has the privilege of being able to attend all ASC events entirely free of charge (apart from beer) in perpetuity. In his acceptance speech, Keith referred to the fact that all he had ever done for the ASC was to refuse steadfastly for eighteen years to be nominated for a place on the Committee: it’s thought likely that, on the whole, this is one reason for the organisation’s long survival!

McDonald Research, a Surrey-based consultancy who offer advice and practical help on all aspects of marketing and advertising research, have bought the Questionnaire Definition module of MERLINPLUS to design questionnaires in Microsoft Word. Colin McDonald mastered the program with no training, and commented how easy it was to use. The modular design of MERLINPLUS allows many of the programs (such as Questionnaire Definition) to be purchased independently.

Merlinco exhibited at the Insight Show on 30th June and 1st July - under a very hot glass roof at Olympia! The change of venue for this show, and the fact that three other shows were being held alongside it, brought a record number of attendees, especially on the first day. We were pleased to see many of our clients there, as well as new prospects. We expect to be on the same stand on June 29th-30th 2010!

Fieldwork UK Ltd who provide flexible solutions to research problems, have bought MPE, our data entry product. This product allows fast entry and verification of ASCII or binary data, with loose or tight checking to suit the user's requirement.

Our first new client of 2009 is The Research Unit, who have bought MERLINPLUS and MTW.
The Research Unit specialise in community engagement and complex social research briefs.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. The Merlinco offices will be closed from Thursday 25th December 2008 until Friday 2nd January 2009 inclusive, re-opening as usual on Monday 5th January. Emails will be polled during the holiday period but, if you have an urgent enquiry, call our usual number +44 (0)870 264 6329, where there will be a recorded message giving an alternative contact number.

JOB VACANCY IN PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT. Merlinco are looking for someone with 1-2 years experience using any survey analysis package (but MERLIN or MERLINPLUS would be an advantage!). Please post or email your CV to Kathy Abbott, our Production Director.

Merlinco will be exhibiting at Insight 2008. Come and see us at stand 503.
The exhibition is on the 18th and 19th November at Earls Court

QRS Market Research Ltd, who have been a Merlinco client for some years through their use of CONVERSO for CATI, have now bought MERLINPLUS - both to analyse Converso data (exported via the Triple-S standard), and to process non-CATI projects from scratch. QRS offer a range of Quant and Qual data collection methods across business and consumer markets.

A WINNING COMBINATION. Now we have our own Production Department, we are even keener to make life easier for MERLIN analysts! We recently realised that a lot of time can be spent defining and labelling an svar that contains all combinations of an mvar ... so we have written a small program to generate the code automatically. If you use MERLIN, and would like a free copy of this program, just let us know.

Clear Stream Research have joined Merlinco's client list this month, with their purchase of MERLIN, MTW, and MERLINPLUS Database. Clear Stream Research offer telephone and online data collection, design and management of online panels and communities, as well as data processing and multivariate analysis.

KATHY ABBOTT, who joined Merlinco in January this year to head our new Production Department, has been appointed a Merlinco Board Director. The volume of production work has been steadily increasing, but we still have room for more! Please contact Kathy if you want a quote for a job.

MPI-PALM IS NOW A MULTI-MEDIA PRODUCT! MPI-Palm, our interviewing program for PDAs, will now play video and audio files, as well as displaying still pictures. This new addition is especially valuable for surveys involving advertising recall.

MTPP Tutorial. In response to several requests, we have produced a tutorial for MTPP (MERLIN to PowerPoint), which clients can download from the Support page of our website. Anyone interested in buying MTPP may like to look through the tutorial as an introduction to the program - if so, please contact us and we will email you a copy.

VERSION 9.1 of our software has been released. The main addition to MERLIN is the ability to directly read and write Excel files, and in MERLINPLUS there is a new screen that enables you to edit any number of entries at once. There are lots more changes to these, and other programs in our range (including new logos!), all detailed in the release notes which have been sent to our clients. Anyone else interested should contact Merlinco.

In a shuffle in the Merlinco boardroom, John Tebboth replaces Peter Jackling as Managing Director. Peter will continue to be involved with the company as Business Development Director, while Keith Hughes remains in place as Software Development Director.

For more information, see our press release at

www.mrweb.com/drno/news7920.htm

Kathy will also be running our web survey service, to be launched in February. We have completely re-written our web questionnaire software, and the new version is nearly ready to be used. You can see a demo here - please let us know if you would like us to host a survey for you!