This month sees the mammoth global launch of the all new Windows 7 as well as the marginally less high profile launch of PRmax, the very latest media database system for Public Relations. The one thing that links both these new products and seems to be driving most new software development is the fundamental change in user expectation. For years software has been driven by developers determined to pack more and more features, functionality and inevitably complexity into every package.

All of a sudden simplicity is king. Businesses, large or small, no longer want to spend two or three man days training staff in the mechanics of tools that were originally intended to increase office efficiency and improve workflow. So PRmax, like Windows 7, is focusing on its core ethos of simplicity, accuracy and affordability.

Mike Kinton, CEO of PRmax, along with the rest of the PRmax team, was one of the original group who developed Mediadisk back in the early nineties. "Our clients were much less computer literate in those days and so systems had to be kept simple. Companies had and could afford much greater levels of administrative support and I still remember people marvelling at not having to type address labels from a book"

"Of all the electronic media database products I've been involved with there have always been Power Users with the IT skills to drill deep into complex functionality," explains Kinton. "The vast majority of clients, however, would have been content with the more basic functionality we used to offer at entry level and perhaps one or two stages past that.

Effectively this is what PRMax has done. It is focused on the basic tools required by all PR professionals and built on those according to what is demanded, rather than build extra revenue-generating whistles and bells that generally make for an over-engineered monster on a server.

Have they succeeded? Well decide for yourself. PRmax are offering everyone in the PR Industry a week's free trial so they can both judge for themselves whether the ethos of "Simple, accurate and affordable" has been met and to gather even more feedback on the direction for future improvement and development.

"There will be scalability enabling development on core functions but PRmax are determined to let the clients drive this. For our part we're confident we can deliver these solutions very efficiently; after all, we have the best people in the organisation whose skills have been enhanced through more experience in the industry than anybody else and because we've all been in it from the very start." Says Sales Director, Don Clark.

PRmax goes on full sale from November 1st at the launch price of £750 per year with short term monthly subscriptions also available on request. PRmax free trials are available throughout November by registering on http://prmax.co.uk/eadmin/requestdemo.