APC Biopod and Vista

[Anonymous user]

I cannot find any info on the APC website regarding the Biopods. I see that Omnipass, which is the software that comes with them, supports Vista. Is the Biopod hardware supported and how do I get the software upgraded?

[Anonymous user]

After it's all said and done and all the entries in this forum...can I get a driver that my APC BioPod will work on Vista or not? The links I tried here all seem to broken. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

I will have a positive update for everyone hopefully by the end of the week.

[Anonymous user]

Does APC plan to license SoftEx's OmniPass v6 or later? Does APC plan to provide a solution for Windows 7 soon? It took over a year before a solution was out for Vista.

[Anonymous user]

From: The Notorious K.M.P.


+"Actually, that post was STRICTLY posted as it states as an APC End-User, but, I am actually an APC Employee. That post with the "taunting" as you think it is, is strictly a PERSONAL opinion. Therefore it does not reflect the opinions of APC. "+

Reply: As an employee, posting a comment, even a personal one, you are still a representative of the company and as such, your comments represent those of the company. That being said, I do not believe your comments were written to taunt users, but a (badly written) way to make end-users realize a point that APC is not responsible for 3rd party software (which in my honest opinion is a load of crap)

If I buy a new car at the dealership and they find a defect in all the radios (made by let's say Harmon Kardon), is the dealership going to tell me to call Harmon Kardon or is the dealership going to contact the radio makers, slap them around a bit to wake them up for their mistake and TELL them to fix it?

The point is that I bought an APC product, not a Softex product. APC chose to go with a 3rd party for software and should now wear its pants and assume the consequences.

I contacted APC the day vista came out... Almost 1 1/2 year after, APC still does not have a viable solution. As an international company, this is worst than absurd...this is ludicrous!



From: The Notorious K.M.P. :
That's like buying a car without an engine, knowing there's no engine in there when you're selling it, then once it's bought you just say "well, you knew about it, deal with it" We're trying to put the engine in the car prior to putting it on the lot.

Actually, YOUR customers feel more like we've bought a car from you and you never delivered the car...never mind the engine. What did we pay for? To be able to use APC's biometric manager. Assume the consequences of your acts when you chose (once again) a 3rd party software.

I have been told to wait now for 1 1/2 years. I am tired of waiting. I am tired of been told its not your fault. I am tired of been told a solution is coming soon. I am tired of putting my hopes up. I am tired of been frustrated with APC for something that THEY should/could have solved 2+ years ago (Vista RC1 came available to software developpers 2 1/2 years ago).

To APC, (mod, please send this to someone in Marketing), feel free to contact me for compensation. You know my info.

Dan
President
D.I.P. IT consultants

Message was edited by: volleyman

[Anonymous user]

Forum Members and BioPod Customers,

First, as the product line manager for this category, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing software to support APC's biometric products on Vista. I understand that frustration has mounted due to APC's apparent slow response or perceived lack of interest to your plight. This is not the case nor has it been; however, we have been constrained on our ability to review and support the OmniPass software for our users. I would like to thank Kevin for his attempts to communicate the status of our internal testing efforts. I can say that he has been equally frustrated as our customers in our inability to address this issue and has had to take the brunt of the criticism in his capacity as moderator. For this, I apologize, this has been unfair to both him, our customers and forum community.

I would like to provide the forum with a status update on our testing and planned release of a beta version of the OmniPass software. We will have a solution available by the end of next week for download. We will post a separate thread which details how customers can download the beta version of the software. Customers will need to provide a valid serial number from their APC biometric hardware.

In the meantime, I would be happy to address any additional customer concerns offline.

Regards,
Andrew Bradner
andrew.bradner@apcc.com

[Anonymous user]

Mr Bradner,

First and foremost, on behalf of all your APC Biopod customers, I would like to thank you for personally responding to this thread and I am very glad to see that this was brought to the middle management's level.

That been said, I truly hope that it will not stop there. I truly believe that the contents of this thread, including the contents, meaning and lessons to be learnt, will be brought to upper management.

1. Leaving customers "hanging" for over 1 year with no specific timeframe/update, even if caused by a 3rd party, is unacceptable
2. Not taking ownership of an issue, even if caused by a 3rd party, is unacceptable
3. Not developing adequate software for a new OS
4. Dealing with a 3rd party that will not support you with the points above should be unacceptable for you as it will ultimately impact YOUR customers, which is your bottom line (figuratively and literally)

I am also personally worried about the timeframe that you have provided us. On April 27th (if memory serves me right), Kevin had instructed us that by week's end, we would have a positive update. I can only speculate that the "positive update" was the release of the beta software yet, as your post said, this beta version will now only be available by the end of next week. Without making a case out of it (for now), I have faith that the (new) deadline will be observed.

As a last point, I truly hope that once this new software is available, it will be made available FOR FREE to your customers, or at least to those who have raised their voice in this thread.

Mr. Bradner, I have sent you an email with a direct copy of this post and have no other comments to provide publicly about this specific subject (unless there are delays), but I would more than welcome the opportunity of a private discussion if required about this subject

Yours,

Dan
President
D.I.P. IT consultants

[Anonymous user]

Dear Mr. Bradner,

Many thanks for your public comments and support. I wish to echo many of the complaints voiced here in that the delay in providing Vista-compatable software has been unacceptable. From a customer's perspective, I don't really care who APC subcontracts the work out to, so long as APC provides an acceptable quality product in an acceptable timeframe. Neither of those has yet to occur for the Biopod. All the comments and finger-pointing to APC's subcontractor for the software is neither relevant nor acceptable for the customer. It is APC's responsibility to manage their subcontractor effectively, and to provide the APC product to APC customers. I would hope that this entire Biopod-Vista situation and all of the comments generated in these threads would be spirited up the line to upper management at APC so that this never happens again for any APC product.

As a management consultant, I am going to incorporate this into some of my seminars on outsourcing and managing subcontractors, as there are some very good lessons to be learned. I hope that APC internally does the same.

Dr. Kenneth Buchholz
Aggravated Biopod Customer &
President
Blue Ridge Consulting
www.blueridgeconsulting-va.com

[Anonymous user]

Forum Members and APC Biometric Customers,

I wanted to let you know that a BETA version of OmniPass v5.0 is now available for APC Biometric customers using Windows Vista. I have posted a separate thread which details how customers can get access to the software for download. I have also included the same instructions at the bottom of this message.

For all of you that have sent messages directly to me, thank you. I appreciate your comments and there were many lessons learned throughout this ordeal. I apologize again for inexcusable delay in making this software available. Please note that this is a BETA version and we will continue to work on the full release of the software solution for our customers.

Thank you for your patience,

Andrew Bradner


____________________________________________________________

A beta version of OmniPass v5.0 is now available to all existing APC biometric customers using Windows Vista. If you are interested in obtaining a beta version of OmniPass v5.0, please contact APC online (http://www.apc.com/support/) or call 1-800-555-2725 to speak with an APC customer service representative.

Customers will be required to provide the Model Number and Serial Number of their APC Biometric Device (both found on the product label of the device), as well as the version of Vista being used (32bit or 64bit). A link to the appropriate version of OmniPass will be provided to the customer at that time.

This information can also be found in APC's online Knowledge Base (Doc# 9290).

[BillP]

Hello,

APC has now made BETA versions of Omnipass V5.0 with support for Microsoft Vista, available to customers.

If you are interested in obtaining a BETA version of Omnipass V5.0 for Vista, please contact APC email support: http://www.apc.com/support/ or call: 1-800-555-2725 to speak with an APC Agent.

Customers will be required to provide the Model Number and Serial Number of their APC Biometric Device, as well as the version of Vista being used i.e. 32bit, 64bit.


Please see K-Base Document # 9290 for reference.

Thank you

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

As Single Phase Escalation support I will make the following promise to APC Omnipass 5.0 customers.

Starting Monday and going into next week, I plan on doing intense training and learning about Omnipass 5.0 and Vista. I will have screenshots of installs, etc. used to train APC Tech Support in advance of APC supporting a full release of Omnipass.

Therefore, I ask that if ANY of you have a problem, even though it is a Beta and not OFFICIALLY supported, I will create a new thread for Biopod Problems.

Please feel free to post in there, and please provide as MUCH information about your system as possible, and I will investigate it to the fullest extent of my ability.

Again please keep in mind that since this is a Beta, and since I do not work for Software QA at APC, I can only undertake this task to a certain extent before it has to be escalated.

But I can promise to do as much as I can.

[Anonymous user]

I'm glad that I'm not the only APC customer that is very upset about apc taking too long for a software/driver update for there apc biopod fingerprint reader. Hopefully they will not charge user for the APC Omnipass 5.0 software when it's finish. APC when is this beta going to end? Vista SP1 have been release to the public and you still haven't provide a software update for your apc fingerprint reader customer. What's going on here were tired of reading the KB about omnipass and vista compatibility.

Has anyone sign-up for the APC Omnipass 5.0 beta version? What's your experience like with the APC Omnipass 5.0 beta? Can someone post a pix of the software if your allowed to?

Message was edited by: biop

[BillP]

software does not work with Windows 7 beta 1.

APC software Omnipass is 5.0 first version (have not been update to new 5.0 version build) while softex inc is already in Omnipass 6.0

APC doesn't even know if Omnipass 5.0 is beta or a full product.

What's going on?

[BillP]

I have been talking to the Softex people for the last couple of months (since Vista SP1 came out) because I have had problems with the software ever since, but there is no support from either APC, (who say they only support the hardware), and Softex (who say that there is no problem with the software, but maybe you can buy the software at full price again within a year of purchase of the previous version) to go from version 5.00.75 to 5.01.15 and in future you can pay the same amount again for version if and when it comes out.

So, if someone is interested in buying the Biopod, use it only for XP, and get the microsoft version for Vista SP1, since there will be no support given for your software, and they will try to just get you to purchase a new version any time, within a short timeframe.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

I have been running Vista SP1 and Omnipass 5 on a test PC in our lab here. There have been no problems thus far. Any problems that have been brought to me by customers (who understand that I would be investigating this on my own, as it would not be official APC Troubleshooting, merely a helping hand), were software incompatibilities with other software suites installed on the system. The only major downside to this is that Omnipass 5 worked flawlessly with Firefox 2.x, which was a key point to getting it released. However, a few weeks after it was released, Mozilla released Firefox 3, which will not be recognized by the software.

[BillP]

Released version 5 for Vista:

Retail(R_Authentec_TPM)_x32: ftp://omnibeta:VEfUHa8@apcftp.apcc.com/050608/omnipass_v50x32_050608.zip

Retai(R_Authentec)_x64: ftp://omnibeta:VEfUHa8@apcftp.apcc.com/050608/omnipass_v50x64_050608.zip

These are the full versions.

APC no longer sells Biometric devices as they are now out of that business since the Schneider take over.

You will need to purchase version 7 from Softexinc. http://www.softexinc.com/product.asp?product=omnipass3

[BillP]

I guess the big joke is the price of the software.. Softex charging 50$ ! lmfao

Cheaper just to buy a new finger print reader from Microsoft. Or hit Ebay up..


POS APC/Schneider, Lost my business for life.. That's for sure

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I cannot find any info on the APC website regarding the Biopods. I see that Omnipass, which is the software that comes with them, supports Vista. Is the Biopod hardware supported and how do I get the software upgraded?