Need opinions

[jb@kso]

Anybody out there using Vision Star software as there lab management system? Thoughts? Pros? Cons? Opinions?

Thank you!

[sharpstick777]

Vision star is an Essilor product, its not well liked by even Essilor labs, some of whom have switched away.

There are only a few others. DVI has an enormous following, but the yearly maintenance fees are as large. Optivision (Bruce is on here frequently) is great software, and middle priced, but people report their customer service response speed is now slower because of their fast growth. A potential issue if you need something customized. CC Systems (Robert is on there frequently) is more modular so you only pay for what you need, and is relatively inexpensive. But updates are infrequent (which is both good and bad) and the help files and documentation are woefully inadequate (which is always bad), which means you are contacting them a lot. We get no crashes with CC Systems, but I found their email response times to questions to be both incomplete and very slow. Robert says he has improved the email system though.

There is newer company out of Holland and Germany, also called Optovision, but they don't have a website up that I could find. But I heard great things about their software from friends in Europe.