Tucson, AZ

The warm weather of Tucson was only exceeded by the day's most sizzling topics surrounding technology at the CUES Technology Conference held at the Hilton Hotel's El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resort on March 5th, 6th & 7th. The conference began with Steve Williams of Cornerstone Advisors detailing their recent study which indicated that credit unions are spending almost twice that of comparably sized banks on technology. Mr. Williams then highlighted his ten technology trends for the future.

In an unprecedented move, CUES provided each vendor sponsor with a 10 minute opportunity to introduce and present their solutions to attendees. CMC's presentation was provided by Sean Holcomb who unveiled what many considered to be the most unique and innovative development - JUICE (Java User Interface Control Environment). Vendors and attendees responded most favorably to the technology. "I've worked with every large core credit union solution provider and none have the kind of technology behind JUICE," one vendor commented. An unnamed executive from a well-known $1.5 Billion California Credit Union remarked, "JUICE is the most impressive UI (User Interface) I've ever seen for a credit union."

Interestingly, trend number six of Mr. Williams top ten was "Integration at the Front Line - It Means Everything". Referring to this obstacle as "Death by Navigation", Mr. Williams explained that today's credit unions are challenged with rapid access to information from various disparate systems in serving their members. For the FLEX System, JUICE achieves this high level of navigation. With the user in the middle, orbiting features include card/check ordering, e-mail and intranet functions, loan systems, on-line reports and one of the hottest conference topics, easy access to archived images and documents. Said one vendor, "Your JUICE technology goes beyond integrated, it's embedded."

In the closing session, representatives from three credit unions in excess of $500 Million in assets, who recently performed core conversions to three different systems, were invited for a panel discussion with the group describing their experience and process. One Credit Union indicated that they spent over $500,000 in overtime alone. Questioned on the total server count and the number of IT people required to support them, the response was 23, 45 and 100 servers supported by 6, 16 and 24 IT staff members, respectively. Translated, this calculates out to just over 1 IT person for every 4 servers. "

As their clients know, creating value through the relentless pursuit of simplicity has been central to the CMC/FLEX mission for years. In his closing remarks, Steve Williams commented, "Technology is unavoidably complex - but simplicity wins." The people from CMC/FLEX couldn't agree more.