for a view of Athena 2.0.Original publication date: September, 2007
Both form and function are beautifully handled in the soon-to-be-released 2.0 version of Softshare Athena, Softshare's popular Web EDI application. Due out in the next couple of months, Athena 2.0 is a rich Internet application (RIA), which is defined as a Web application that has all the features and functionality of a traditional desktop application. Click here for a view of Athena 2.0.
You may be thinking that your current version of Athena already functions similar to a desktop application, and we won't argue with you there. But a true RIA provides an entirely new kind of Web experience that is more engaging, interactive, and flexible. For example, you will be able to move around in Athena without every action requiring a page reload… as if the data was on your hard drive, and not being shared across the Internet.
In addition to being built upon sleeker technology, Athena 2.0 is just plain sleek. Its capabilities are significantly more robust than Athena 1.0 and, once you get your hands on them, you will wonder how you lived without them, including:
If you noticed that many of these new features seem geared toward higher volumes of EDI documents, you are right. One of the big transitions between Athena 1.0 and 2.0 is that an Athena account is no longer limited to managing low volumes of EDI documents. And, as talked about next, the new Athena pricing model reflects this change in positioning.
While Softshare will still offer an entry-level subscription to accommodate low volumes of EDI documents, you can see in this comparison table
that we have substantially decreased the cost of our other subscription programs to make high-volume EDI less prohibitive in Athena 2.0. For example, if you are currently enrolled in the 50 documents per month subscription level, not only will you save almost 50% on your annual subscription rate, but you will also be allotted 400 more documents per year. And notice the per-document overage fee: it has been drastically reduced from 2.50 per document to 15 cents! The new Athena pricing model will go into effect upon the renewal date of your annual Athena subscription.
Now that we have you all excited about the prospect of Athena 2.0, you probably want to know when your account will be converted from the 1.0 to the 2.0 version. As said previously, Athena 2.0 is due out later this year; more specifically, we are anticipating late November.
However, Softshare will not be converting all Athena users at once. For quality assurance purposes, rollout of Athena 2.0 will be handled in phases. Assuming all goes well, we expect to have all Athena users converted within six months of Athena 2.0's release. But if unexpected issues are encountered, it could be longer. Either way, we will notify you when your account is officially slated for upgrade and follow up with a quick orientation of the new interface once your conversion has taken place.