Hi Everyone,

Today there was a change in ownership of our parent company, Service Repair Solutions (SRS), and we wanted to fill you in on the details. As you may know, SRS owns iATN, Identifix, and a few other automotive service industry related companies. Previously, SRS was controlled by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Today it has been announced that Warburg Pincus has sold SRS to the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS).

We are not expecting this change to have any negative impact on iATN whatsoever, and on the contrary, look forward to the additional resources and knowledge that WCAS can bring to the family of companies within SRS.

Here is the official press release.

To be clear, there is no change in the staff or management of iATN. I will continue in the roll as President of iATN, which I assumed in 2010 as Brent Black began his transition into retirement. Thomas Winzig will continue to handle our technology, and Lara Solar will continue to manage our accounting and tech support operations.

And on the more important question of what this means for iATN members: it's going to be business as usual!

We just released a major upgrade to the File Library system, allowing members to more easily upload files from desktop and mobile devices, including the ability to upload and share automotive tool data files. This is already getting some widespread use in the forums, and we're excited to see how this progresses over the months and years to come.

Our brand new search engine has now entered an "open beta" period, meaning any member can try it out without needing to sign up and wait to be added to our beta program. We look forward to transitioning members to this new, much-improved search interface over the coming weeks and months.

Click here if you'd like to try it now.

Our next major project slated for this year is the long-awaited release of mobile apps for iATN, for both the iPhone, iPad and Android phone. We've been working on them now for several months, and look forward to entering a beta test period in the coming months.

For those iATN members that also use Identifix's Direct-Hit product, we're excited to announce that you will soon be able to find fixes on iATN while searching Direct-Hit. (An iATN Business+ premium membership will be required to take advantage of this cross-site feature.) This complements our existing "Related Documents & Media" feature, which allows iATN members to quickly jump over to a vehicle-specific search of Direct-Hit when viewing a TechHelp document.

In short, 2013 and 2014 are looking very bright, and we hope you enjoy the ride!

Thanks everyone for your support.

Sincerely,

Scott Brown
Administrator
iATN
Brea, California, USA