There are a few UK Times 250 companies that use Uv. Having just been made redundant by one of them -PHS Group (Business Services). I know that William Hill (Bookmaker) is a Uv (& Redback) user, as is Travis Perkins (Builders Merchants), and Wolseley Group (Plumb Centres). Some well known Ud users include Smiths Industries, and The Natural History Museum. There are people on this list who were in the UK U2 User Group, up to Y2K. There were some other less well known users too - like HM Government ministries (lost touch nowadays but I'd be happy to post on their behalf if they do not want to associate their names directly!) - though I can't imagine my mentioning that Dept of Environment (formerly Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food) was a Uv user, is likely to get Special Branch knocking on my door. The extent to which Uv is in use is another matter though - PHS, for instance, was 100% Uv but over 4 years much has now moved onto an SQL platform. With Warehousing & Stock being the last bastion, Uv has a couple more years there, at most.
I admire firms that acknowledge their mistakes, I worked for one in the 80's (my pre-Pick days) - a decision to move onto Oracle & 4GL platform (did anyone say "what's 4GL?"), after 15 months, performance testing proved a flop (despite "specialist consultants") and we wrote off a #2m investment and within 6 months had adapted the "live system" to relect the features that were used to justify the Oracle decision in the first place. Sadly (as in Eric's case), the more common approach (shareholders note!), is to carry on limping with the replacement, rather than admit the "proposed solution" never lived up to expectations. My view has always been that a new systems development should always be budgeted under "R & D", and when it's a proven success only in retrospect should costs be reflected under "Capital Investment". Too many CEO's see a new system as Capital Expenditure from it's inception, and then the mind-set get's fixated on making it work - objectivity flies out of the window! A bit like a waterways maintenance company deciding to strap inflation tubes to a wheelbarrow, when what's really needed is a barge - try prototyping by all means, but keep an open mind until it's proven in practise. I believe UV is also quite popular in the colonies!<G> Ray ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
