> > I'm keeping an eye out for canned solutions. As mentioned, I'm highly > > skeptical about getting involved with any development work at all for > > a single business. I see that approach as nothing but trouble. > > I've had similar experiences. Businesses have to be *REALLY* > unique to need something other than what is off the shelf. > Mostly, businesses who insist they need a custom solution do > not understand what they are asking for, how much it will > cost (in money, their time and their effort and in long-term > support). At Blackstone, the hardest hurdle a client needed > to get over to engage with us was to convince us they needed > a custom solution. We convinced many to look into > off-the-shelf account, POS, inventory, ERP, CRM and MRP systems.
Yes. Of course that leads to making a determination which is the best of the breed, and also most likely going to be around in 'n' years. Nothing like recommending a product from a vendor who then disappears. On this note, I've checked to see what IBM has by way of POS systems for small business, and did find something, http://www.pc.ibm.com/store/products/pos/500/features.html but no pricing (which I expect to be substantially higher than the competition, as usual), so I called and left a message explaining what I'm interested in and asking for a return call. If I learn anything of interest, I'll post about it. > Restaurants are the business with the highest rate of > failure. One of the reasons for that is that there are few > business people starting them. Chefs and cooks may make great > food, but the business of running a restaurant depends on > many other skills. Kind of like consulting depends on writing > great code, but a lot more. I recall a friends-of-the-family related experience along these lines. She was a super cook, so they opened a restaurant out in the Hamptons (Long Island) ... lost a small fortune. This guy has been around the block a few times and survived so far, so he's got a lot of savvy. Whether he can get his mind around the technology and use it successfully is an open question, but he is open-minded about it. Thanks, Ted/all Bill > Ted Roche > Ted Roche & Associates, LLC > http://www.tedroche.com > _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
