October 20, 2003
For Immediate Release

SAN DIEGO, October 20, 2003 -- What Amazon.com did for book and CD shopping and eBay did for small business e-commerce, a la mode will now do for appraisal ordering, tracking and delivery. a la mode’s Mercury Network, already the largest appraisal transaction server in the world with over 15 million reports handled in the last year, has undergone a radical transformation with its new "version 3.0" being released this month. The announcement came from the floor of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) 90th annual Conference and Expo here.

With the new Mercury Network, loan officers, brokers and vendor managers take advantage of the benefits of Mercury’s appraisal assignment status updates, QC review and report delivery even if the order was assigned outside the Mercury Network. An all-new workflow-driven interface includes more project management features, like reassignment, monitoring, turn time tracking and even basic accounting. The instant, online Mercury Messenger eliminates phone and e-mail tag, allowing lenders to reach appraisers in real-time.

Most importantly, the new Mercury Network broadens the pool of available appraisers. Already including appraisers in every county of every state, the Network will benefit from greater availability of a la mode’s Mercury Desktop application, to be provided for free to all licensed and certified appraisers in the United States in the coming weeks.

The Mercury Network is a server hub drawing appraisers and their lender and vendor manager clients together. More than 15 million appraisals were delivered via Mercury Network servers in the last 12 months. Mercury Desktop resides on an appraiser’s PC and is an EDI workflow management application and the appraiser’s "gateway" to the Network.

"The Mercury Network has become the industry’s standard for paperless mortgage transactions because the mortgage lending community has realized its unique benefits in terms of ordering, tracking, reporting and fulfillment of appraisals," said Dave Biggers, founder and CEO of a la mode, inc. "We’ve found in our experience that the hardest step to take is the first one – so we’ve revolutionized the Network to allow lenders who still order via fax and e-mail to manage their appraisal projects through the Network. And we’ve included so many intuitive, valuable new features that the Mercury Network is more accessible and useful than ever before."

The Mercury Network was launched in 2001 to accomplish two steps in the revolutionary transition of the appraisal profession to paperless EDI: enable a la mode’s appraiser customers to market their services to lenders and appraisal management companies in need of valuation professionals on a county-by-county level, and allow lender, loan officer and AMC clients to engage appraisers, status track reports and receive appraisals electronically. These steps have been accomplished beyond the most aggressive expectations.

Now, Mercury 3.0, including both Mercury Network and Mercury Desktop components integrating seamlessly but operating independently, gives more appraisers access to the system, improves functionality and ease of use, and makes finding an appraiser, ordering an appraisal, tracking report status and receiving complete, reliable and correct appraisals even easier than ever. The new Mercury Network was unveiled to attendees of the MBA Conference and Expo, in advance of the Mercury Desktop release.

In the coming weeks, every appraiser in the United States will have access to the core Mercury Desktop features: order management and tracking, EDI with basic E&O and client specific business rule reviewing, a single IMAP mailbox for appraisal-related work, and a bypass of mailboxes altogether where file size or other limitations on e-mail are an issue. a la mode will deliver to existing WinTOTAL appraiser customers – now more than 50 percent of the nation’s appraisers – an instant Internet update to deliver the new Desktop applications directly to their computers, and CDs with the new tools will be distributed free to every appraiser in the country.

Mercury Network remains free for lenders and appraisers to use.

"We’re doing again what we did in the late 90s, when we were the first to make available large-scale EDI capabilities for appraisers," said Biggers. "At the time, everyone else was trying to figure out how to charge $15 or $20 per transmission for EDI capability via VANs. We wanted to shoot a little higher – not nickel and dime the transactions, but make the functionality accessible to the broadest community of appraisers possible."

"Based on our overwhelming success with that venture – which led to the Mercury Network becoming the leader in paperless mortgage transactions – we’re now doing the same with Mercury Network web-based EDI," Biggers said. "Web management is what people are trying to charge for now. But we think it can and should be free and available to everyone, especially if appraisers are going to try to stay ahead of absurd but ever-present charges that are speed bumps in the mortgage process."

With Mercury 3.0, appraisal clients and customers will gain:
 

To learn more about Mercury 3.0 and to search the Network’s participating appraisers in any county in the United States for free, go to http://www.alamode.com/mercury.


About a la mode, inc.
a la mode, inc. is the leader in the design, development and support of real estate related software, Internet solutions and electronic document technologies. The company’s flagship product, WinTOTAL, is used by more than 50 percent of the nation’s appraisers, nearly three times the share of its closest competitor. a la mode’s Mercury Network (http://www.alamode.com/mercury) servers delivered more than 15 million electronic appraisals in the past 12 months, making it the undisputed leader in paperless real estate transactions.

More information on the company can be found on the Web at http://www.alamode.com.

Media Contact
Matt Barr
(330) 296-8894
matt_b@alamode.com

Sales Contact
Scott Kinnaird
(800) 252-6633
scott@alamode.com