Last Friday we pushed live our ATS product site www.harbour-ats.com.

At last we have a proper face to HARBOUR ®, which coincides with the launch of our "instant ATS" product (more on that in a mo). We've been roadshowing the system and the thinking behind it for a month or two now and (although I guess many would say it anyway even if it wasn't the case) the feedback has been universally, and overwhelmingly, positive. Quite relieving really considering the time, sweat and bears we've put into this even so far. It would indeed seem that those people who have spent a lot of time working with clients using many ATS products out there (probably collectively most ATS product's out there in the UK space) have all been as frustrated with their experiences as we, and clients we've worked, have previously found which is exactly why we've built HARBOUR® ATS.

It seems every other day this ATS or that is sounding off about adding a new function here or a new capability there but I wonder why they can't just go back and get the basics right? The stuff that the candidate engages with, or indeed engages the candidate. The stuff the client REALLY uses and interfaces with. The stuff that makes a day-to-day difference, not just another seemingly mostly "just for the sake of it" technology implementation that has little impact to the majority of users. Anyway each to their own and in my books the longer competitors are unwilling (or is it unable?) to review their fundamental offer to make it what so many people clearly believe it should be (or at least what it shouldn't), then vive la difference and each to their own.

We know that we'll be the new boys (and girls) for a long time yet, so in a move to build that all important user proving of HARBOUR®, as well as flexing the real speed and flexibility of the system in real-time, we created an entry level system we call HARBOUR® instant ATS. You can read all about it on harbour-ats.com, as well as signing up for it, but essentially it's a sub £500 ATS that offers many of the features of the full ATS and delivered within a matter of hours.

And what's the flash and bang about? Well I kid you not, we pushed the site live and as we did so the most torrential shower emptied over Tiptree (where I'm based). I checked the site's all good when live and then go to get a glass of something fizzy to raise to the site's good health and it's at that point that the lightning filled the sky with the immediate crack of thunder directly overhead. Now I'm not a big one for omens, but it got me thinking when Robbie Cowling pressed go live on Jobserve, based as he was and still is in Tiptree, all those years ago, did he witness an electric storm? Here's hoping there's some cosmic internet business lay line running through these parts in this economy every little helps