Welcome to the inaugural edition of the SirsiDynix OneSource e-newsletter. You can look to this space each month for news, announcements, and updates from me and my management team regarding the status of the company’s integration, as well as for information on the full range of new and enhanced products, initiatives, and other projects we’re undertaking. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to communicate as much as we would like early on in the merger process due to the amount of time it takes to work through initial details; I assure you that SirsiDynix is committed to proactive communication with our clients. Your ideas and feedback are important to us, so please never hesitate to share them with us.

The strongest team in the industry

We now have in place SirsiDynix’s combined management and organizational structure at the corporate level and for North American operations, which I believe positions us to move forward most effectively. The new structure has shaped up to include the following major functional areas managed by executives reporting to me:

Worldwide Sales & Alliances: Bill Davison, chief sales officer, is responsible for all aspects of worldwide sales and alliances related to Horizon and Unicorn, as well as internally developed and third-party add-on products. Many of you will know Bill from his tenure as Dynix’s chief operating officer. You will recognize a number of other familiar faces in the new SirsiDynix Sales organization, including Susan Buchanan, Kate Duval, Eric Keith, Lamar Jackson, Marc Roberson, Jeanne Spala, Marsha Stark, and Brad Whittle.

Product Development: Jack Blount, who’s remaining with SirsiDynix as an executive technology consultant after three years as Dynix’s CEO, will also be the company’s acting chief technical officer. In this capacity, Jack will assist in completing the development of the Horizon 8.x/Corinthian platform, as well as in optimizing the operations of our product development organization involved in continuing to develop Unicorn and other current and future products. John Dickson, Lynn Thackeray, and Byers Parsons remain in their lead roles in our development organization.

Operations: Don McCall, chief operating officer, is responsible for the company’s major operational areas, including human resources, implementation services, customer service and support, and consulting services. Cathy Brotzman, Mike Casale, Greg Hathorn, Terry Jarnagin, and Patti Pray, all of whom are familiar to the SirsiDynix family, make up the Operations senior management team.

Marketing: Angus Carroll, chief marketing officer, is responsible for all aspects of corporate marketing, including pricing, advertising, public relations, events, product management, and technical product design. Familiar faces in the Marketing organization include Berit Nelson, Steve Nielsen, and Jim Wilson.

Finance: Larry Smith, chief financial officer, is responsible for all financial aspects of the company worldwide, including financial reporting and planning, legal & contractual matters, compliance with various taxing authorities, and banking relationships.

Also reporting to me is Stephen Abram, our vice president of innovation. As a recognized leader in the library community, Stephen is in a unique position to leverage his extensive experience to ensure that our products and services continue to be the most innovative in the library market.

A complete listing of senior managers and their areas of responsibility is available on the SirsiDynix Customer Web sites.

Defining our product strategy

There are a number of important decisions we’ve already made — others are still being considered. Probably of most importance to you is our decision to continue development of both the Unicorn^® Library Management System and the Horizon 8.x/Corinthian platform, the next upgrade to the Horizon 7.x system. In fact, the latest version of Unicorn, GL3.0, was just released; the next version, Unicorn GL3.1, is on track for delivery toward the end of 2005; and Horizon 8.x/Corinthian remains firmly on schedule for release in 2006.

Both Unicorn and Horizon are established product lines that have and will continue to support an installed base of 4,000 institutions in supporting more than 20,000 library locations worldwide. There's clearly strength in numbers, and we have the numbers sufficient to sustain development of both Unicorn and Horizon. That’s good for our current customers, as well as the marketplace in general, as we’re now able to offer more options than ever before.

Continuing to expand our solutions

While we are developing two distinct ILS server platforms going forward (Horizon 8.x/Corinthian and Unicorn), there are great opportunities for developing complementary, platform-independent solutions that will not only make for greater efficiencies within the SirsiDynix product development organization, but also provide customers with a broader range of options than ever before. We’re confident that the development opportunities we are now investigating will be of great benefit to Horizon and Dynix users. They include:

·         Making the company’s content offerings, including Rooms content, available for use with all current user interface/portal solutions

·         Supporting a single data-mining solution and a single advanced set of Web-based ILS reporting tools on both the Horizon 8.x/Corinthian and Unicorn platforms

·         Offering SirsiDynix customers a single suite of add-on products — both SirsiDynix and third-party products — that can be used with either ILS platform; for example, the URSA interlibrary loan solution and SmartSource bibliographic/authority record service.

·         Exploring the feasibility of a future “fused system” that incorporates the best from both Horizon 8.x/Corinthian and Unicorn — similar to what has been done by our incorporating many key DRA Classic and MultiLIS capabilities into Unicorn over the past four years

Another important point to remember is that we will also continue to support earlier versions of Horizon and Dynix systems, just as we continue to support the DRA Classic and MultiLIS systems for more than four years after the merger with DRA.

Commitment to customer service

Of course, product development is but part of the story. You also expect high-quality, dependable customer service. Don McCall joined the company as chief operating officer at the end of 2002, with the charter of ensuring that the company delivers this kind of customer service. In late 2003, we introduced Service Level Commitments, which set standards of excellence for the technical support, training, and implementation services offered by SirsiDynix. Since Don joined the organization, we have implemented formal and routine processes for measuring customer satisfaction in all service areas, as well as dedicating ourselves to Service Level Commitments, which put in writing a standard of performance customers can expect from the company. Satisfaction has risen each year and is now 90+ percent in all areas. We are committed to reaching world-class levels and exceed the expectations of customers. We are not there yet, but we are systematically improving in all areas of our business. And we will continue our efforts until we meet and exceed your expectations.

Better. Together.

The new SirsiDynix is in a better, stronger position to deliver the products and services our customers need, along with unparalleled expertise for making our own offerings and those from best-of-breed third-party companies integrate into libraries’ technology environments. With our R&D and customer service resources, we are poised to be a true world-class company that is committed — employees, management, and owners alike — to making SirsiDynix a technology partner to libraries around the world.

We appreciate your patience and support as we continue the integration of SirsiDynix. Never hesitate to let me or anyone on my staff know about your concerns or suggestions. And I look forward to seeing you as I visit customer sites and industry conferences.

Sincerely,

Patrick Sommers

Chief Executive Officer