Mark,
I appreciate your response and though I don't feel I owe anyone an explanation, out of professional courtesy I will do my best to answer your questions as well as those of the others that have posted to this thread. First I need to be clear, I can only speak to the practices and plans in NJ and PA.
I would also like to attempt to clarify a few misconceptions. Let me begin by stating that there is no secret that automation is the direction we at Datatrace are heading and working towards. That does not mean that we are looking to hurt our employees. Currently we employee 195 people in NJ. That is 195 families that we support. As one of the original employees of the company that began the tax searching business here in NJ, I can assure you that I care very much about the people that work here. Just ask anyone of them. In addition, Datatrace affords  it's employees many many opportunities. Let's get more specific. I know your questions concern our abstracting division so I will attempt to focus there. We currently have searchers with a wide variety of experience. To be fair, you don't know everyone that works here so please refrain from making generalizations. Our most experienced searcher has 40+ years experience as an independent abstractor. We recently prepared  report and determined that when we looked at the experience of all of our abstractors and averaged it out we came to the conclusion that our searchers have an average of 12 years of experience. That is not to say that we don't have searchers with 3 or 5 years experience. We also have an ongoing (mandatory) training and continuing education program for ALL of our abstractors, no matter what their background. To answer the question of our future plans for these employees, I would like to respond by saying, they are secure, they know what direction we are going in, and they understand that they have a future in the "BIG" picture. Why is that not sufficient?
I find it curious that you have such a clear picture as to how we are acquiring our data, what we do with it and what our future plans are. It's not hard to figure out how we acquire the data. You are incorrect about sending the data to India. The databases are built right here in the good old USA. As for the future, the jury is still out. We have NOT made any decisions how we will sell or market the product. I'm not saying that we haven't discussed subsription programs, but we certianly have not made a decision.
You reference our other products but I am unsure of your point. We try and provide our customers with a full service. Why are we wrong for doing this? My only point earlier was that we don't package our products. You have obviously spoken to your customers and I can guarantee that they are not receiving any type of "packaging" from Datatrace. It's all about service.
As far as the comment you made that we ask favors and do not return them (I'm paraphrasing) Again, please be careful. You don't know everyone in this business and can't possibly know what we have done for people. Ask the family who recently lost their dad/husband (who was an independent) and the fact that we fulfilled his orders while he was ill at our own cost. Or the independent in the west that was having computer issues and we sent a tech out to diagnose and fix the problem, again at our own cost.
This business, as you know is based on two things (IMHO) 1. SERVICE. If you don't have it you won't succeed.2. Building relationships. Your employees, your customers and yes your competitors.
Someday I would like to address your comments regarding how we started in the abstracting business. I am choosing not to do that now as this post is already very long and I don't think that is the real point of this thread. I would like to say though, alot of successful companies are built by buying smaller companies. Not necessarily a bad practice.
Lastly, to the person that made the comment (again paraphrasing) regarding the security of my job. I can assure you it is, but thank you for your concern.
Mark, if you would like to speak to me directly, I welcome your call. You know how to reach me.
Amy