Karen If it is any reconciliation I to have been there so I know the frustration.
I used to work for a Swedish multi-national company named (named Ericsson in telecom industry) My first app I wrote for Ericsson in R:Base from 1984 upto 1994 in System 4000 and/or V and/or 2.11 in middle east. My Last app for them was 5.5 (maybe plus) in 94-95 in New Zeeland and Libya. After that I was hit by MS-hysteria so I had to quit and started my own company still loyal to R:Base. I never regretted it. My guess is there a lot of people having the same experience. Look it from the bright side as long as they cant solve the problem and you can, you still has an opportunity and a possibility to let knowledge become before stupidity. I am still so amassed by the fact that a lot of people are willing to spend 1000 bucks to save 100, that is exactly was is happening when someone standardise on MS instead of utilizing the power R:Base Gunnar Ekblad Kontema IT AB Hästholmsvägen 32 131 30 Nacka Sweden -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Från: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] För [email protected] Skickat: den 30 oktober 2009 14:56 Till: RBASE-L Mailing List Ämne: [RBASE-L] - Re: Office 2007 and old RBase Yeah, Paul. This client is a toughy. It's my only experience with a big multi-national company -- the kind people who have worked there for 30 years can walk around and don't recognize people. Software decisions are handed down by people that you have never met and who have never spent a day in your office seeing how you do your work. They have an "approved software vendor" list, and it basically says Microsoft. Most of their RBase apps were migrated to other packages, but 2 applications have survived the purge due to their importance. However, they terminated my consulting contract 3 years ago because the departments were forbidden to spend money changing their RBase apps. 1 of the apps was very image-loaded, with lots of PDFs to manage, wanting to copy and paste and apply formatting ... Got to the point that 6.5++ cannot handle it. Don't know how they did it, but they got permission for me to upgrade this app to 7.6 and they're thrilled. But the other app is, and probably always will be, mired in 6.5++. That's because they spent millions of dollars on an enhanced vertical market app to replace this RBase app. All the data is now entered into this other app, but they cannot get all the reports they want out of it, so now 6.5++ is a front end where we bring in files from this app (in either .txt or .xls format) and produce reports and spreadsheets that they distribute all over the world. 7.6 would be infinitely better, but to get it would be to admit "failure" on their parts. ASAMOF they still have not renewed my contract because I think they don't want to be reminded that 3 years later I'm still doing RBase enhancements for them. Allbeit most of it still in 6.5 Karen Can you imagine the money spent for all those Office 2007 licenses, and they tell you not to upgrade. The shame, you have a tough client. You might consider VBA/C++ and several examples of code (I found a couple source codes for 2007Excel that read the BIFF12 format embedded in Excel) that are out there, to get you where you want to be. It would cost more than them just biting the bullet to upgrade to 9.0, but just think of the fun you have in the mean time. NOT! Good Luck
