CompuSol and EccoPro


By Friedhelm Dohmann

CompuSol established in 1986 was an official reseller of EccoPro under Arabesque and later NetManage. CompuSol continued to support its EccoPro user base after NetManage abandoned the software and discontinued development at the end of 1997. Shortly thereafter in 1999 the owner/moderator Tom Hoots at the EccoPro forum at Compuserve established a new tech support group at Yahoo under the name "eccopro". At that time the original Yahoo user group "eccopro" and CompuSol had the official original Ecco Pro download free available online per FTP linked to NetManage, see http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com and http://jkontherun.com. Please see also the license agreement discussion and email exchange between CompuSol and NetManage of April 2004 http://www.compusol.org/ecco/netmanage.html. Two years earlier on 08/27/2002, after several interruptions of their free FTP downloads, NetManage allowed CompuSol to distribute a free zipped version of the last original installation dated 8/27/1997. This version is available at http://www.compusol.org/ecco/401e32.zip.

On 5/11/2005 on request of many of the original "eccopro" Yahoo user group members CompuSol created a manual EccoPro installation for users of Win XP SP2 called "EccoFilesSystem.zip" which was freely distributed to other support groups which used it as their free distribution copy still in use today at http://forums.eccomagic.com/.

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Ecco Version 2

For over a decade CompuSol is spearheading the effort to keep EccoPro alive - in direct discussions with NetManage's Archie Roboostoff, NM's general counsel Steve Mitchell and Jeff Sonnabend during the failed push in the summer of 2005 to release the source code (please see also http://www.mail-archive.com).

Most of the EccoPro history referenced on the Internet is based on original documents and pages owned by CompuSol and published in the years 2000 to 2005. Please see arabesquefacts.html, the 93 press release 93pressrelease.html, the Arabesque Vision arabesquevision.html, Ecco History by Tom Hoots eccohistory.html, and why Ecco failed (EccoPro as a business case) by Chris Thompson at eccocase.html. There are also several original PDF copies of PC Magazine articles created from archived copies of PC Magazine at CompuSol from 1993 and 1997 available at ecco93.pdf and pcmecco.pdf.

In 2007 Tom Hoots the original owner of the Yahoo Support Group "eccopro" and Nick Gordon who followed Tom past the baton to Friedhelm Dohmann of CompuSol. Tom wrote on 3/1/2007: "I passed the baton" to Nick, but I'm not sure what that entailed in regards to the "ownership" in Yahoo's eyes -- and that was long, long ago! I was the one who originally started the group, though, and if Yahoo actually recognizes sentient human beings, I'll state that you certainly have my permission to change the group in any way you see fit!"

CompuSol hosts many free tools and help files released to CompuSol by their originators, like all Catalyst Tools and Call Commander Pro by John White. Many of these tools are also hosted free inside the file section of the original "eccopro" Yahoo tech support group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/eccopro/join. Additionally, in March of 2010 CompuSol produced a 52 minute instructional video available at CompuSol's online portal "http://www.creativeservices.us".

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Ecco Pro 4.0

CompuSol recognized early the need to update the EccoPro installation process for new operating systems like 32-bit and 64-bit Vista, Windows 7/8 and 10 and developed a Windows compliant installer for EccoPro. Additionally, CompuSol simplified the PDA synchronization process in cooperation with MotionApps http://www.motionapps.com to make the installation compatible with webOS and the Palm Pre by using MotionApps Classic V2 emulator(see hotsync.html). Also, all original installers for the EccoPro Version 2 and the Version 3 are still available at the CompuSol site. CompuSol charges a low yearly $20.00 membership fee for free EccoPro software downloads and technical installation support per ticket system. Half of the fee is applied to Research and Development.

Please review some of the member supplied testimonials located at "http://www.compusol.org/ecco/testimonies.html".

Additional External References to EccoPro and CompuSol (please note the timeline of events):

http://www.sync2it.com/ Sync2it
http://friendfeed.com friendfeed.com
http://forums.eccomagic.com EccoMagic Forum
http://www.xmarks.com XMarks
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.windows.eccopro gmane.org
http://www.wordyard.com Wordyard
http://portableapps.com/node/5137 Using ECCO on USB Drive
http://osdir.com osdir.com, ECCO under wine under Linux
http://www.compulegal.eu CompuLegal.eu
http://freemind.sourceforge.net freemind.sourceforge
http://forum.brighthand.com Brighthand
http://forum.darwincentral.org DarwinCentral
http://www.theconglomerate.org The conglomerate
http://www.allpm.com AllPM.com
http://www.donationcoder.com Donationcoder
http://www.hyperorg.com/ Hyperorg.com
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/ Outlinersoftware
http://www.guardian.co.uk The Guardian, London
http://projectmanagementnews.blogspot.com Project Management
http://www.fredshack.com/docs/pim.html Information Managers
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Friedhelm Dohmann

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