MERLINCO TECHNICAL SUPPORT

	APR 08	UK LAUNCH OF CONVERSO ENTERPRISE - FREE SEMINAR. Conversoft have developed the next generation of research management tools: ENTERPRISE PORTAL - a complete package to manage all aspects of surveys, from design to delivery. Merlinco are hosting a free seminar to highlight the benefits of ENTERPRISE for your organisation, demonstrating how you can use this leading edge technology. Please join us on Wednesday 28th May at 9:30 am, at Novotel London Tower Bridge, 10 Pepys Street London, EC3N 2NR. Click here for more details .
	FEB 08	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
	JAN 08	We are pleased to announce that Kathy Abbott has joined us, to head up a new Merlinco Production Department. In addition to getting support and program upgrades, clients will now be able to place their overflow production work with Merlinco. Please get in touch if you think we can help you! 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!
	DEC 07	Merlinco offices will be closed from Monday 24th December to Tuesday 1st January inclusive. Clients requiring support during this period should call the emergency number on our voicemail message. We wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.
	DEC 07	Keith Hughes wins second gong of the year! The survey software standard 'triple-s' has probably saved the global research industry $1.5 million a year, and its developers have at last received some recognition. At the MRS "Research Excellence & Effectiveness Awards 2007" dinner earlier this week, the triple-s Group were given a Special Achievement Award by the MRS and ASC jointly. Merlinco Director Keith Hughes is a Founder Member of the Group, along with Geoff Wright of Computable Functions and Steve Jenkins of Snap Surveys, and Merlinco were one of the first companies to implement the triple-s standard in their software. Read more about the Award at http://www.mrs.org.uk/awards/dinner/asc_special.htm , and about the triple-s Group and standard at http://www.triple-s.org .
	NOV 07	Farida Mayat's maternity leave ends this month, but we are sorry to tell you she is not returning to Merlinco. She did visit us recently, and was looking very well. Farida did most of the MERLINPLUS support for six years, and was very popular with both clients and staff. We wish her all the best, and hope to stay in touch.
	OCT 07	Redshift Research, a business-to-business and consumer research agency, have become our newest MERLINPLUS client. Redshift have bought MERLINPLUS to standardise their analysis of data which is collected in a variety of on and offline packages. .
	SEPT 07	MERLIN SEMINARS. We will be holding seminars for MERLIN users in October and November. Please refer to our events page for more details.
	SEPT 07	Media Intelligence, a company who specialize in using Flash to create interactive and visually appealing surveys, have bought MERLIN Toolkit. This will enable them to export projects into various formats required by their clients. Media Intelligence are part of GMI. .
	AUG 07	We are improving the procedure for users to download updates to our software. As a first stage, we have greatly simplified the existing Program Downloads page, but we are also planning an automated system for ensuring that users keep their copy of our software up-to-date.
	AUG 07	SMSR Ltd, a dedicated social research agency with a 16 year successful track record serving the public sector, have bought MERLINPLUS to analyse their survey data which is mainly collected on a CATI system, and exported to MERLINPLUS via triple-s. .
	JUL 07	Nunwood, a Leeds-based market research company, have bought two MERLIN licences.
	JUN 07	Following Monday night's MOJO Honours List Award Ceremony, Merlinco director Keith Hughes took home the MOJO Catalogue Release Of The Year Award, for his work on The Complete Motown Singles box set series, specifically for Volume 6. The Award was presented by the beautiful Andrea Corr. Asked about his future plans, Keith said: "Whilst opportunities to stand next to Miss Corr, arms around each other's waists, for ten minutes in front of a media crew from all over the world, are regrettably few and far between in the Survey Research Software business, I don't think I'll be giving up my day job just yet!" .
	MAY 07	LINK + Partner España S.A., a Spanish market research company, have bought MPE to do the data entry of ad-hoc jobs, and have been very busy using it ever since!
	MAY 07	SOFTWARE FOR END USERS. Five more universities have bought MERLINPLUS Database to do further analysis on data collected and analysed in MERLIN by OpinionPanel Research. Both MERLINPLUS and MERLINPLUS Database now contain charting facilities like those in FASTAB. .
	APR 07	A new release of MTPP (MERLIN to PowerPoint) is now available. Additional features include the ability to specify your own customised chart types, and to create slides of data tables instead of charts. All slides are now accurately previewed in MTPP.
	MAR 07	Research Now have bought 5 extra MERLIN and MTW licences to be used by their expanding team of analysts, some of whom completed the 3-day MERLIN introductory course in March.
	MAR 07	We recently held a MERLIN seminar at our offices, which was so successful that we are planning to organise regular seminars for both MERLIN and MERLINPLUS users. See our Events page for more details.
	FEB 07	Merlinco have signed a new contract with Conversoft, to continue marketing their CATI software in the UK and Eire. Conversoft also offer software for CAPI / CASI / CAWI and (their newest product) mobile phone interviewing.
	DEC 07	Troy Solutions Ltd, an Oxfordshire company who provide training and development programmes for businesses, have become a Merlinco client. Troy will be using MERLINPLUS to run customer satisfaction telephone surveys, and have also bought MTW and MTPP to help present the results.
	NOV 06	OpinionPanel Research, who have been MERLINPLUS users for nearly a year, have recently upgraded to MERLIN. For frequent users of our software, MERLIN provides more power, flexibility, and efficiency. OpinionPanel tell us that they have already found this to be true.
	NOV 06	FARIDA MAYAT had a baby boy called Zayd, weighing 5.5lbs on Thursday 16th November. Mother and baby are both doing fine!
	NOV 06	INSIGHT 2006. Merlinco exhibited at this year's Insight conference at Earls Court. It was good to see many of our clients and old friends there, as well as making new business contacts who we are now following up.
	OCT 06	Lighthouse Global Ltd - a business consultancy specialising in analysis and research for organisations in the professional services, financial services and retail sectors - have bought MERLINPLUS
	OCT 06	FARIDA MAYAT is going on maternity leave at the end of this month, after over five years at Merlinco, mainly handling MERLINPLUS Support (but also looking after this website!). We do wish her all the best, and will let you know when the baby arrives (due in December). Mark Syrett will be taking over her work.
	SEPT 06	ESOMAR Congress 2006. Merlinco exhibited at this year's congress which took place in London from 18th September until 20th September. We are now following up leads in several countries.
	AUG 06	SOFTWARE FOR END-USERS. In the last couple of months, we have made several software sales to end-users of research data, including two universities. We have two products aimed at such users - FASTAB, which requires no training at all, and MERLINPLUS Database, which captures all the power of the MERLINPLUS reporting modules. Both programs work on databases generated by MERLIN or MERLINPLUS.
	AUG 06	MARK SYRETT has joined Merlinco as a Trainee Support Executive. Once he has had some training, Mark will start dealing with some of the MERLINPLUS queries currently handled by Farida. Mark is from Kent and is a keen all-round sportsman.
	JUL 06	MERLINCO SOFTWARE v9.0 has now been released, including some very significant changes, the main changes being: MERLINPLUS grid handling radically overhauled, including support for one and two dimensional numeric grids, and much higher limits. MERLIN - much higher limits, and much faster! (We have already had very positive feedback about the speed)! ... plus many other new features!
	JUN 06	BAA Press Release. After exhaustive testing of packages for conducting surveys on hand-held computers (PDAs), the British Airports Authority (BAA) have confirmed selection of Merlinco’s MERLINPLUS software for their research at UK airports. Click here to see the full press release.
	JUN 06	Merlinco are looking for a TRAINEE SUPPORT EXECUTIVE. Applicants must be experienced in using Microsoft Office, and some knowledge of market research preferable. Full training given. Salary dependent on experience. Send your CV to John Tebboth.
	MAY 06	This month's issue of the Market Research Society's Research magazine includes a review of MERLINPLUS (on page 60) by Tim Macer of meaning ltd. He ends by saying "All in all, MERLINPLUS is a good middle-ground software solution at a very good price, for the mid-sized user who wants to be more self-contained". Unfortunately, owing to a production error, the price quoted is nearly 10 times too high!! This has been corrected in the on-line version, and a printed correction will appear in Tim's next Interface article.
	APR 06	Merlinco are now leasing a software package called Webex which, using the Internet, makes it possible to take control of a client's PC (but only with their explicit permission!). This helps us solve those rare support issues where we cannot reproduce a problem experienced by the client on our own PCs - but also means that we can show clients how to do particular things in the software. The client can see on their own screen exactly what we are doing, and can take over control of the mouse or keyboard at any point.
	MAR 06	Merlinco have moved to: Tower Bridge Business Centre, 46-48 East Smithfield, London, E1W 1AW. Telephone: 0870 264 6329. Fax: 0870 264 6328.
	FEB 06	B2B International Ltd, a specialist business-to-business market research consultancy who already use CONVERSO for CATI, have now bought MERLINPLUS to analyse the data collected.
	JAN 06	The MERLIN Tips and Examples library has been extended again, with 16 new STPs, so every section now has at least two examples. The MTEW program, which allows you to browse this library, is supplied free with MERLIN, and is a useful reference tool for all MERLIN users.
	DEC 05	Opinionpanel Research, operators of The Student Panel, the field and tabs agency specialising in UK Higher Education students, have bought MERLINPLUS, as well as MTW, MTPP and FASTAB, to analyse their student panel data.
	DEC 05	BMG Research, MERLIN users since 1998, have bought 3 more licences, as well as extra MERLINPLUS and data entry licences.
	DEC 05	Once again, although support services were available throughout the Christmas period, we had a peaceful time! We hope you did too, and that 2006 will be a good year for you. Best wishes from all at Merlinco.
	NOV 05	MTW new boxing facility. We have released a new version of MTW (MERLIN to Word) which allows the user to specify boxing on the options form, instead of using MERLIN script. This makes it very easy to add boxing to any tables.
	NOV 05	MTPP. Several of our clients have now bought the new MERLIN to PowerPoint export, and others are trialling the product. We have had some very positive feedback about the time saved by using this package.
	OCT 05	Farrugia Leo Ltd have bought 11 more MPI-Touch licences. They are now running this product on 22 touchscreens.
	OCT 05	MERLINCO Training & Dinner. An afternoon of MERLIN training followed by evening dinner in a restaurant was held on Wednesday 19th October. Both events took place near our London office. See events page for full report.
	OCT 05	Merlinco exhibited at Insight 2005 on 25th and 26th October. We were pleased to see many of our clients there, as well as new prospects.
	SEPT 05	We conducted a census of all MERLIN users, to discover more about what features are being used. The results will be announced at a MERLIN Training afternoon in October.
	JUN 05	RedC Research & Marketing Ltd (a company based in Ireland) are the latest company to have bought MERLIN.
	MAY 05	MTPP (MERLIN to PowerPoint export) has now been released. A full description has been added to our Products page.
	APR 05	The MERLIN Tips and Examples library has been extended to include 21 new STPs. The MTEW program, which allows you to browse this library, is supplied free with MERLIN, and is a useful reference tool for all MERLIN users.
	APR 05	MERLINPLUS GRIDS. Work has begun on a major overhaul of this feature, that will affect nearly all modules in MERLINPLUS. The new style grids will be available in version 8.2 and will allow both one and two dimensional numeric grids.
	MAR 05	Two of our existing clients have bought MTW licences this month. Most of our clients are now using this powerful tool to generate high quality tabular output in Word.
	MAR 05	Two of our Converso clients have added extra interview stations this month. Nearly all the UK sites have expanded their CATI operations since first installing Converso.
	FEB 05	We have made a large MPE sale to a multi-national company, who are now using our software on nearly 100 data entry stations in 11 different countries.
	DEC 04	The Christmas and New Year period was very peaceful at Merlinco... although support facilities were available between Christmas and New Year, not a single client contacted us! We hope you had a peaceful time, and extend best wishes for the New Year to you all.
	NOV 04	Rocol Iro (P) Ltd. (an Indian based company) have bought five MERLIN licences.
	NOV 04	Our new export to Microsoft PowerPoint is now being beta-tested at several sites and will be on general release in Spring 2005. An overview of the product is available from Merlinco.
	NOV 04	Merlinco Software Version 8.1 has now been released with many new features in both MERLIN and MERLINPLUS. MERLIN users may now access external files for lookup purposes, and MERLINPLUS users can produce a new topline summary report in Microsoft WORD. For more details, or copies of release notes, please contact Merlinco.

	OCT 04	INSIGHT 2004. This year, Merlinco also exhibited at the INSIGHT Show which took place at Earls Court, London on 26th and 27th October. We will now follow up the leads we got from the show.
	SEPT 04	ESOMAR Annual Congress 2004. Merlinco exhibited at this year's congress which took place in Lisbon, Portugal from 20th September until 22nd September. We are now following up leads in several countries.
	AUG 04	MPI-Palm. We have released a new program module that should greatly benefit all MPI-Palm users. The new module (MPHW) allows you to transfer files between the PC and the palmtop from within MERLINPLUS, rather than using Microsoft Active Sync and Explorer.
	JUL 04	A record number of companies have booked MERLIN and MERLINPLUS training courses in the last few weeks, keeping John Tebboth (our Training Director) very busy! Some sessions were introductory courses for new staff, and others were customised to cover particular aspects of the software. If you need training for any of your staff, do let us know.
DataLucid	JUN 04	DataLucid Ltd and Inputech (who are working together on our new export to Microsoft PowerPoint) have both bought MERLIN licences.
	JUN 04
	MAY 04	2020 Research, an existing MERLINPLUS user, have now bought our web interviewing system.
	MAY 04	Export to Microsoft PowerPoint. Steve Taylor of Inputech and Mike Trotman of DataLucid Ltd are working with Merlinco to produce this new module. You can see Steve's presentation on our User Group page.
	MAY 04	FASTWEB. We are currently designing a new analysis tool, similar to FASTAB, but web-based. The data does not necessarily have to have been collected on the web, as data collected by other means may be uploaded into a database on the web. If you are interested in such a program, and would like some input into the design, please contact us now.
	MAY 04	Merlinco User Group 2004. See report on this recent event.
	APR 04	Kingfisher Shopping Centre. Latest in series of shopping centres to utilise MERLINPLUS, and MPI-Palm on hand-held questionnaire devices.
	APR 04	MERLINPLUS grids. We are planning a complete overhaul of this feature. If you would like to have any input to the design, now is the time to contact us!
	MAR 04	New Survey Monkey import. MERLIN Toolkit now features an import from the Survey Monkey web interviewing package.
	MAR 04	Incisive Media plc. are the first client to use the new Survey Monkey import.

LINK + Partner España S.A., a Spanish market research company, have bought MPE to do the data entry of ad-hoc jobs, and have been very busy using it ever since!

A new release of MTPP (MERLIN to PowerPoint) is now available. Additional features include the ability to specify your own customised chart types, and to create slides of data tables instead of charts. All slides are now accurately previewed in MTPP.