To our Friends, Partners and Valued Customers

Dear friends, partners, and valued customers:

I wanted to reach out to each of you and thank you for the outpouring of love and appreciation for our loss of a great friend and leader, Jonathan Berman. This was a great shock to the entire industry and was a tragic loss to our team. We deeply appreciate your patience with us as we continue to heal.

Yesterday, we made a formal announcement of our transition and the sale of our company to the holding company ACRE. This transaction had been in the works since late summer and was clearly the dream of Jonathan as he was a big part of the process. With his sudden and untimely loss, it completely left us shorthanded and the work of our external announcement to our partners and customers fell behind. For that, I personally apologize.

The sale of Open Options was a strategic decision that was uniformly supported by every level of our executive management.  As the industry continues to consolidate, we identified many reasons why we believe this direction provides deeper strength to our longer-term mission of bringing the best in open architecture to our customers. Open Options will continue to move forward as a standalone company under the umbrella of ACRE, and our brand, staff, and products will continue to remain the same that we have offered in the past. The scheduled release of our latest software and hardware products are continuing on track.

To summarize, we will continue to move forward with the great ideas, products, staff, and purpose that we have since our beginning. We have lost a great friend and leader, but have rededicated ourselves to his memory with purpose. If you have any specific concerns, please feel free to contact me directly.

Thank you for your support as we all look forward to the conclusion of a great year in business and a continuation of what we have always provided.

Sincerely,

Steve Fisher