If you were a board choosing a new MLS system for your members, wouldn't you want a system from which you could upload listings and download search information using the same software? That would be elementary - like having e-mail that you can send and receive messages from simultaneously. In fact, it is so elementary that you might assume you were buying a bidirectional system,(one with upload as well as download capabilities) - even if you weren't.

That is a mistake made by Worcester MLS, MLS-PIN, who assumed that all MLS system vendors offer the same minimum capabilities. Dave Wluka, president of the Boston Board of REALTORS®, was stunned to learn, after the fact, that the system he backed for his board isn't bi-directional. And he feels to blame. He encouraged the board and other boards to choose Moore's Compass system with MLS Windows as its interface, over another system that he and others preferred. Moore Data representatives rejoin that the system is bi-directional - through PC Access.

The Boston board is one of the boards that merged together to create the MLS-PIN, an MLS serving 13,000 members. The majority of those members were already using Moore Data's Compass system, but the Boston area's 4,800 members were served by the Remis system, by Quest Technologies.

"The Boston Board didn't want Compass," explains Wluka. "They considered Compass a step backwards from Remis, but with MLS Windows, we would have better capabilities. The rest of Massachusetts considered the new Compass system to be a step up so they wanted the new Compass system. Converting to a system that was familiar to more than half of the MLS members, instead of putting everyone on a new system, was considered the lesser of two evils. "

Wluka helped swing the vote in Moore's favor after playing with the system at the MLS vendor shoot-out during which four vendors vied for the lucrative 13,000 member MLS-PIN contract. In hindsight, that is where he, and other board members, should have caught hold of their assumptions. The demos were live, but neither he nor other board members tested the systems by uploading listings. He says no one told him, and it didn't occur to him to ask. "I knew the other systems were bidirectional, and so was PC Access. I never dreamed that Windows wasn't."

Moore VP of information systems, Howard Latham is surprised that a board would think that MLS Windows has a capability that it clearly doesn't possess. He says that MLS Windows has never had upload capabilities, and has never been presented as having upload capabilities. He explains that PC Access, the basic Compass access product, does have upload/download capabilities. MLS Windows, he says, is for writing "cool reports" and the system provides a distributed database - the ability to download data and work off-line. The company is working toward adding upload capabilities to MLS Windows, but does not have a roll-out date for the enhanced product.

Looking back, Wluka admits that Moore Data never intimated that its MLS Windows product had upload capabilities. But what he doesn't understand is why it takes two or even three software products to do what other companies claim they can do with one product.

"I can't believe with the technological capabilities that Moore Data has, that they would use this "band-aid approach" to information management," accuses Wluka. "Every other system designer out there has integrated capabilities - upload and download capabilities and distributed database on Windows-based systems."

When the Windows beta product, due in late spring, failed to ship on time, Wluka went to the other boards in a "dog and pony" show to ask for patience, always accompanied by a Moore representative. It was during one of these meetings that he was interrupted during a speech, and told in a quiet aside that MLS Windows has download capabilities only. Wluka was stunned. Now the system he had personally promised to be so good was not only late - it would require members to learn PC Access code and the purchase of two products in order to input listings.

"I would never have chosen MLS Windows for our members if I had known that the system wasn't bidirectional," he claims. "Our members are upset because it was not the Compass system we were buying - we were buying the Windows system."

The MLS is now in a legal suit against Moore over the failure to deliver MLS Windows complete and on time. Although the finished product arrived about three months late, according to reports, it was incomplete and "full of bugs." The MLS refused to roll it out to members. The Windows shipment has been sitting at MLS headquarters since October of 1998. Sources say that the Windows product has a download feature which enables it to accept upgrades in the system. For this reason, the product should have been passed out to MLS-PIN members, who could have downloaded the patches to fix the bugs.

"These problems should have been fixed last August, " says Wluka. Wluka, also a beta tester of the product, claims that some bugs have yet to be fixed, patches or no.

The MLS Windows interface had been successfully installed in Maestro, Moore's other database product, but the MLS-PIN was to be the first to have it installed as an interface to the Compass system. Latham says that the San Francisco MLS has had a successful conversion of the same system purchased by the MLS-PIN and that it has been up and running since December.

System capabilities is a side-line issue and not a part of pending legal action between the Worcester MLS, MLS-PIN and Moore Data. Even with a resolution pending to the law suit, Wluka says he is disappointed. "This is not how it should have turned out. We thought we were doing something wonderful for our members."

Published: April 28, 1999

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