On 6/1/06, Nick Holland > > Bring in another dev. company... > (the good news is, this one seems to be MUCH better.)
We had something even better. My guy developed a working prototype, in less than a month (1 weeks spent getting specs, another week spent getting the java servlet engine working - this is back in the late 90s, another week developing the database schema) - actual coding time was less than a week. Our users loved it. Instead of consulting a bunch of books (govt paperwork) as tall as I was, and as wide as 10', they could have just used the browser, and get the results back in a split second. We just had to enter the data, ONCE. Mgmt put it on hold. Demoed to customer. Customer loved it. Instead of taking/buying our work, customer shopped that concept out. The new company took over a year to get the specs, could not deliver any working prototype, and had a $4.5mil contract. Best part of the story - customer (fortune 100 transportation company) bought us - so, effectively, they owned the source code. My total cost - $1k for an IDE that we later decided not to use. Man - like what they say - what we need is less corruption, or more chances to participate in it.
