I’m sure many of you don’t know who SATO is. They don’t sell consumer products so most people haven’t heard of them. SATO is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bar code printing, labeling and EPC/RFID software and hardware. They are an innovative company that had made every effort to keep up with the rapid changes in the technology field.

As a result of this effort, their latest release of SATO Label Gallery, LG3.22 label design software with all new drivers has survived the extensive and rigorous certification requirements demanded by Microsoft to win the coveted certification “Compatible with Windows 7” through the Windows Hardware logo program.

According to Gary Krause, director of marketing for SATO America, “The expectations of our customers are that our products are certified according to latest industry standards. The Windows certification provides our users with the confidence that our products have been thoroughly tested with Microsoft-provided tools, which will ensure a good user experience.” He added, “Addressing the current and future market needs of customers using the Windows platform is to SATO a critical component of customer satisfaction; it also extends to the support that is provided to partners developing applications based on the latest Microsoft technologies.”

The new software with updated drivers provides a lot of new functionality such as:

• All GS1 DataBar bar code variants are now supported
• GS1 DataMatrix support which is commonly used in healthcare direct parts marketing and the automotive industry
• Support for the Brazilian, Portuguese, and Turkish languages
• Support for the next generation of US Postal mail codes called Intelligent Mail Bar Codes
• New functionality that will dynamically adjust to the number of records received based on user configuration.

Conclusion

It is really nice to see that there are some software vendors that wait and put out a quality and thoroughly tested product instead of just throwing it out there and fixing the problems later (see yesterday’s post). My hat is off to SATO. We need more vendors with their dedication to quality.