As you are probably aware, beginning on June 10th, the Business Division of the Secretary of State’s Office was impacted by unforeseeable, Department-wide, catastrophic and persistent problems with its computer systems. These unprecedented problems denied us reliable access to our mission-critical programs and databases for over three weeks. The Division’s Web-based online services were among the afflicted systems and applications, causing considerable inconvenience, and in some cases very real hardship, for those of our constituents who have come to depend on these services. To those users, we again offer our very sincere apologies.

As of last Friday, July 2nd, the Business Division had recovered to a significant degree from these computer problems and had generally restored all internal and online searching, image accessing and copying, filing and certification functionality. Unfortunately, these computer problems preceded and overlapped in part the Division's June 30-July 5 transition to its all-new computer system and redesigned Web homepage which had been in development for two years and scheduled for launch on July 6.

As a part of the conversion, we had planned to enable Web-based online delivery of a dozen or so of the most frequently filed business organization documents (annual report, reservation of name, articles of incorporation, articles of organization, etc.) plus the newly liberalized articles of reinstatement, all with an introductory processing fee of 99¢. However, the extremely untimely computer problems forced an emergency reallocation of resources and interrupted our intensive testing of the new system. Because the Department’s data center remained in a disaster recovery mode, with some key hardware that supports the new system still operating below full capacity and ‘at risk’, and in light of our hampered system testing, we made the disappointing but more conservative decision to delay the enabling of online filing of the dozen transactions other than annual reports.

Because extensive and substantial changes to the laws governing business entities became effective on July 1, it was imperative that we make the long-planned corresponding changes to our policies, procedures, practices and forms and deploy the internal version of our new computer system, which we did as scheduled on July 5. At the same time, we launched the Division's new Web homepage with its totally redesigned 'look and feel' and improved functionality. At this time, online filing is available but is limited to annual reports which may be filed online for 99¢.

As might be expected with the implementation of any new computer system, and especially after taking into account the lingering and deleterious effects of the Department’s overall computer problems, we are experiencing some growing pains and glitches. For example, we are aware that our online applications are running unacceptably slowly and we are taking steps to rectify this problem. If possible, we recommend that you access our online services at other than peak demand hours.

Additionally, at this time, we are experiencing an overwhelming demand on our call center. We regret and apologize for the long delays that some callers are encountering. For the near term, if at all possible, we recommend that you limit telephoning our call center while we concentrate on fixing the glitches that are the subject of most calls and on improving our quality of service.

We remain committed to the release of additional online business organization document filing transactions in the upcoming weeks as soon as we are satisfied that the Department’s data center will not be jeopardized by the additional demands on it that will attend expanded online filing opportunities. Please visit our Web site regularly for updates.

Once again, we are very sorry for the difficulties that the combined computer problems plus new system glitches are causing our constituents. We ask for your continued patience and understanding as we resolve these issues and refine our new applications. We are working diligently to correct all existing problems and to deliver solid online applications, value and convenience, and are confident that you will be pleased with the end results.

Thank you.

The Business Division

Published Wednesday, July 07, 2004