RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
All right already. For those of you in national entities currently or formerly ruled by a queen, the use of the Britishized (new word, just made it up) spelling is considered somewhat pretentious here in the colonies. I need coffee now -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 6:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV At 01:04 19/05/04, you wrote: The Alert Centre, Englewood CO USA, 1993 - 1996 The Alert Centre (yes they really spelled it that way) What? Something wrong with correct spelling, now? ~8^)) Maybe he was talking about Centre being spelt the English way instead of the American way Center considering that the company was in the US. Disclaimer. This e-mail is private and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please advise us by return e-mail immediately, and delete the e-mail and any attachments without using or disclosing the contents in any way. The views expressed in this e-mail are those of the author, and do not represent those of this company unless this is clearly indicated. You should scan this e-mail and any attachments for viruses. This company accepts no liability for any direct or indirect damage or loss resulting from the use of any attachments to this e-mail. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
Ross, An additional historical note - Oasis had a booth at some of the Spectrum shows. I do seem to remember that Pick had some influence on their product - perhaps their data retreival language. Eugene - Original Message - From: Ross Ferris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 10:53 PM Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV Back in the days of 8-bit computing, before the rise of MS-DOS, back in the era of CP/M, MP/M and the trash 80, there was an operating system with an embedded database called OASIS, with an enhanced BASIC that was aware of the database . I mention this only as an historical note, as the environment evolved from an all-encompassing operating system to simply a database, called THOROUGHBRED lots of similarities to Pick, right down to efficiency I remember seeing a 64K 4Mhz Z80 Altos system driving 16 terminals. If anyone is interested see www.tbred.com Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage an Evolution in Software Development -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2004 1:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV SNIP [Ross Ferris] The DICE system was not SQL but run under 'Thorobred' which is a 80x24 colorized memory-mapped video system that comes across as windows. It was not GUI either but we MV programmers never got good at memory mapped video. Too bad as it's the basis for overlaying whole or partial screens with relative ease. my 1 cent. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.688 / Virus Database: 449 - Release Date: 18/05/2004 --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
This is a valuable thread, however, it doesn't belong on u2-users. Please continue this thread on u2-community. - Charles Barouch, Moderator --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
snip The Alert Centre, Englewood CO USA, 1993 - 1996 The Alert Centre (yes they really spelled it that way) was an security \snip Sorry - how else could they have spelt Alert ? --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
Goo'day, At 01:04 19/05/04, you wrote: The Alert Centre, Englewood CO USA, 1993 - 1996 The Alert Centre (yes they really spelled it that way) What? Something wrong with correct spelling, now? ~8^)) snip -- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.241 / Virus Database: 262.10.1 - Release Date: 16/05/04 Regards, Bruce Nichol Talon Computer Services ALBURYNSW 2640 Australia Tel: +61 (0)411149636 Fax: +61 (0)260232119 If it ain't broke, fix it till it is! -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.241 / Virus Database: 262.10.1 - Release Date: 16/05/04 --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
At 01:04 19/05/04, you wrote: The Alert Centre, Englewood CO USA, 1993 - 1996 The Alert Centre (yes they really spelled it that way) What? Something wrong with correct spelling, now? ~8^)) Maybe he was talking about Centre being spelt the English way instead of the American way Center considering that the company was in the US. Disclaimer. This e-mail is private and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please advise us by return e-mail immediately, and delete the e-mail and any attachments without using or disclosing the contents in any way. The views expressed in this e-mail are those of the author, and do not represent those of this company unless this is clearly indicated. You should scan this e-mail and any attachments for viruses. This company accepts no liability for any direct or indirect damage or loss resulting from the use of any attachments to this e-mail. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
Oddly enough one of my favorite clients converted from a legacy MV based Security monitoring system (ABM) to the DICE system and I hail it as perhaps the only migration in the 5-8 that I've participated in that was a marked improvement. To say it was seamless would be an understatement. This victory came from the industry standards for alarm monitoring (UL, SCI i think) that dictate the procedures. Thus this DICE system was geared to convert many ABM companies to their system. I had spent 2.5 years enhancing the green screen ABM towards contemporary standards but the appeal of DICE and the fact that they were a VAR with periodic enhancements instead of just me as their only provider were too great an obstacle. Perhaps I helped them put off the inevitable. I drove 85 miles one way each week for this client. I really liked them. The DICE system was not SQL but run under 'Thorobred' which is a 80x24 colorized memory-mapped video system that comes across as windows. It was not GUI either but we MV programmers never got good at memory mapped video. Too bad as it's the basis for overlaying whole or partial screens with relative ease. my 1 cent. - Original Message - From: Jeff Schasny [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 11:04 AM Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV The Alert Centre, Englewood CO USA, 1993 - 1996 The Alert Centre (yes they really spelled it that way) was an security systems and alarm monitoring company. The had around 100 concurrent users and ran on 2 redundant Sequoia boxes under Pick OA. Their applications included the normal accounting functions (AP, AR, GL) some work order/ dispatch stuff and of course the core alarm system monitoring and response system. I was there in 1995/96 as a consultant after their entire Pick staff (of 3) quit. Sometime in 1993 management decided (at the urging of some consultants or another) to convert their existing applications to a relational database. Informix was the chosen platform and Anderson Consulting was selected to design the database. Note here that I phrase this very carefully. Design the database, not the applications, not create the database, just design it. A very impressive design document was produced in just under a year an at the cost of just under a million dollars. A second consulting firm was then chosen to create the database as designed and begin writing the applications in Informix 4gl. Again note that NO changes or improvements to the existing functionality were to be implemented, just a switch to a relational database. During the time I was there they had managed to move the accounts receivable and work order/dispatch modules off of Pick OA at an additional cost of 1.5 million dollars and had completely abandoned the possibility that they would ever convert the alarm monitoring/dispatch system. There were at that time 10 Informix 4gl Programmers (some on staff some consultants) and 4 Informix DBA's and 3 AIX System Administrators. The Informix database was running on 4 IBM RS/6000 480's (one as an application server and 3 as database servers) and the entire database was replicated over 3 machines because of ongoing data integrity problems and an inability to get good tape backups on any single database instance. Shortly after I left in 1996 the company folded and its assets and customer base were sold to SecurityLink. I cant say specificly that the company folded due to an attempt to switch from Pick to Informix because they did alot of other goofy things too, but he drain of capital associated with the meaningless vanity switch of environments certainly contributed to their downfall. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
Back in the days of 8-bit computing, before the rise of MS-DOS, back in the era of CP/M, MP/M and the trash 80, there was an operating system with an embedded database called OASIS, with an enhanced BASIC that was aware of the database . I mention this only as an historical note, as the environment evolved from an all-encompassing operating system to simply a database, called THOROUGHBRED lots of similarities to Pick, right down to efficiency I remember seeing a 64K 4Mhz Z80 Altos system driving 16 terminals. If anyone is interested see www.tbred.com Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage an Evolution in Software Development -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2004 1:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV SNIP [Ross Ferris] The DICE system was not SQL but run under 'Thorobred' which is a 80x24 colorized memory-mapped video system that comes across as windows. It was not GUI either but we MV programmers never got good at memory mapped video. Too bad as it's the basis for overlaying whole or partial screens with relative ease. my 1 cent. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.688 / Virus Database: 449 - Release Date: 18/05/2004 --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
A couple examples I have heard of are Scandinavian Design and Damark. First let me say that all I know about either is second or third hand information. I know a lot of the people that worked at Damark over the years. It was a good sized Pick shop for many years. It broke up into two companies. One, ClickShip, which is now defunct. The other is Provell. Provell is still running on Universe, but trying to still make the jump to Oracle. I think Damark started the move to Oracle in the late 90's. Some will say that there were many elements in the demise of the company. But rumor on the street was that they spent 10 million dollars writing an order entry system in Oracle, when they had an existing one in Pick. I think Scandinavian Design has been documented by others. -Original Message- From: Debster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 11:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV Not belly up but had extreme difficulties (i.e. Oxford Health Plans). They then wound up keeping some applications on MV since Oracle could not meet the demands. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dawn M. Wolthuis Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 10:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV I've tried to search the archives for some old postings and have been unsuccessful, so sorry for asking for previously posted info. I'm looking for information related to companies that moved or attempted to move from applications based on MV to Oracle or other relational databases and went belly up in the process. Thanks for any anecdotes or info you can pass along or point me to. --dawn Dawn M. Wolthuis Tincat Group, Inc. www.tincat-group.com Take and give some delight today. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
These all sound like companies that had issues because management were morons, and not because they used database X or Y. Don Kibbey Financial Systems Manager Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett Dunner LLP --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
From: Dawn M. Wolthuis I'm looking for information related to companies that moved or attempted to move from applications based on MV to Oracle or other relational databases and went belly up in the process. I don't know that this is so much a MV-to-Other conversion phenomenon as a general problem with any replacement of any legacy system. New systems will be buggy. Period. There will be everything from requirement to design to programming errors. Everything from fundamental misunderstandings and naove simplification of business rules, to the silliest of coding bugs. Legacy systems have bug worked out. Legacy systems have business rules buried in them. A lot of those bug fixes and adaptations to new business demands make the code convoluted. It looks like a building that started out as a one room hunting cabin, then by adding one room at a time, it ends up a 3-story 10-bedroom home, with attached 2 car garage (The garage may be the original hunting shack). Very often when converting to a new system, that system will have to go through that same cycle before it finally reaches the functionality of the system it replaces. If the new system is built in-house, they can hope to make a coherent whole, but they _will_ miss things. If there is continuity of personnel there is some hope. But if they bring in new technologists for the new technology, forgetting that the old technologists possess invaluable business knowledge and the ability to read the old code and ferret things out (the legacy system's documentation is its source code), they are asking for disaster. If a company buys supposed state-of-the-art software to run its core business function, replacing a highly customized system that encapsulates whatever it is that differentiates that company from its competitors, then G-d help them! (That's a prayer; I am not swearing.) Read Things You Should Never Do, Part I, by Joel Spolsky, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog69.html, for an example from Netscape. Search for rewrite in that site's archives for articulate apologies for favoring old code. I don't think anything I have said is peculiar to MV, but I do think much of what has been posted to this thread is consistent with it. MV-based systems may have some additional virtues that imply additional costs when abandoned. Comparing rates of success failure of projects converting _TO_ as well as _FROM_ MV-based systems might say something about relative strengths/weaknesses of MV-technology. Chuck Stevenson --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
There is a question about whether all databases are equal, just different, or whether a company can really save considerable dollars by choosing products based on one rather than another. While some folks think that the database product is irrelevant and it is the application that makes a difference, companies over the past couple of decades have thought that they must convert to Oracle and more recently to SQL Server or DB2. Because the anecdotal evidence is not there for such moves doing anything to save companies dollars (although they often do succeed in improving the resumes of those in IT), I started researching this area a bit more. I had thought that relational theory was truth and I no longer have such delusions. So, you could be correct that they are just business case studies of people making mistakes, but one of those mistakes might just be their technology choices. Cheers! --dawn Dawn M. Wolthuis Tincat Group, Inc. www.tincat-group.com Take and give some delight today. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Donald Kibbey Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 11:23 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV These all sound like companies that had issues because management were morons, and not because they used database X or Y. Don Kibbey Financial Systems Manager Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett Dunner LLP --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
It could be argued that only a moron would move from PICK/MV to Y snicker -Original Message- From: Donald Kibbey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 12:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV These all sound like companies that had issues because management were morons, and not because they used database X or Y. Don Kibbey Financial Systems Manager Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett Dunner LLP --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
From the few experiences I've had with companies converting away from Pick, the most common problem I see is underestimating staffing requirements for the new system. I actually had one company owner say that he expected to reduce his staffing requirements by converting to a SQL Server-based package. This may not sound so strange until you learn that at the time he had one computer operator and a part-time contract programmer, called in for occasional development and mods. In actuality, he didn't reduce his staff, but it didn't grow significantly either - if you're just counting staff. He now has a computer operator/database administrator and a full-time programmer... along with three consulting companies providing weekly on-site service and off-site development for various aspects of the new system -- hardware, database, and networking. It is a significant increase in outlay for the same user base. None of this was unpredictable... or necessarily a bad thing. It could be argued that an increase in functionality might well be worth the trade-off of additional outlay in the I.T. Department. The only frustrating part was the constant denial by the owner beforehand of the anticipated increase in outlay, and the constant surprise he showed after the fact. It wasn't a surprise to anyone but him. Meanwhile, as Dawn said, there is a significant development effort being expended to bring the off-the-shelf package into closer conformity with their business model, and vice versa. I don't think this is a function of the chosen database; it's just a natural process that occurs when a legacy system is replaced. -- James -Original Message- From: Donald Kibbey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 17, 2004 9:23 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV These all sound like companies that had issues because management were morons, and not because they used database X or Y. Don Kibbey Financial Systems Manager Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett Dunner LLP --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
The joke was that the CEO, a Harvard MBA, wanted Oxford to become a model for study at the Harvard Business school, and he got his wish. Oxford was, I understand, just acquired by United Health. I remember the first day I walked into Oxford, and the VP of IT told me in the elevator ride up that Pick will be gone in two years. That was 1993. He was sort of right; they went to UniVerse somewhere between 95 96. In addition to not billing the individual members, they totally lost sight of their costs; the Oracle Financials didn't work (or, at least, somewhere along the chain, something was broke). So they had an invisible hole in revenue as well as an invisible hole in payables at the precise moment that one the former was falling and the latter was rising. Still, after the crash, they got their (expletive deleted) together. The system is well-tuned, there's a solid UniVerse DBA group, Matt Augustine knows where his towel is, SDLC is practiced, and there are tech leads and tech reviews to ensure that programming standards are in place and enforced. The last thing I did before I left for the last time ( I came went 4 times; one way they shot themselves in the foot was to periodically let all contractors go, resulting in the loss of hundreds of years of institutional knowledge), in 2001, was a line-by-line analysis of the adjudicator. This was supposed to be the first step in re-engineering, and the talent they had on site at that point was quite capable of doing a solid job of it. So, perhaps the moral is, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Then you get acquired... Our greatest duty in this life is to help others. And please, if you can't help them, could you at least not hurt them? - H.H. the Dalai Lama When buying selling are controlled by legislation, the first thing to be bought sold are the legislators - P.J. O'Rourke Dan Fitzgerald From: Dawn M. Wolthuis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 17:39:02 -0500 I found several hits when googling Oxford-Health Oracle fiasco Is there a particularly good write-up on this story that anyone can recommend? I still thought I read about companies that ended up going under (perhaps VARs) when attempting to migrate from MV/PICK to SQL-based DBMS's. Thanks. --dawn Dawn M. Wolthuis Tincat Group, Inc. www.tincat-group.com Take and give some delight today. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Allen Egerton Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 4:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV On Sun, 16 May 2004 09:05:37 -0500, you wrote: I've tried to search the archives for some old postings and have been unsuccessful, so sorry for asking for previously posted info. I'm looking for information related to companies that moved or attempted to move from applications based on MV to Oracle or other relational databases and went belly up in the process. Thanks for any anecdotes or info you can pass along or point me to. -- dawn Not belly up, but you can't leave Oxford Health Plans out. Anecdote: Million dollar bonus for transferring data from Universe to Oracle tables if done over the weekend. Not happening fast enough. Drop the constraints. Bonus received. Tables full of garbage. -- Allen Egerton [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
I must add my 2 cents to this MV migration thing. One of my main clients just finished a year-long conversion from Results to Great Plains. GP is basically QuickBooks on steroids compared to Results. Nice screens and lots of helper screens. But basically a mis-match on fields and functionality. (Results is akin to SHIMS and PRIMAC) Every system has an AR/AP/GL and Payroll modules so let's call that a draw. The generic GP Order Entry module is just a step above a shopping cart. It has a good pricing module although a little too complicated. What it lacks was the fields and processes to enable a large degree of sales analysis. In my travels through all of my MV clients, this is an incredible module that's installed in Results and other sales-oriented systems. Many, many, companies and departments like to look in the rear view mirror to see where they're going. This was terribly missing. The transaction data was there but there were no analytical tools except their pathetic report writer. Crystal Reports was promoted as a magic pill to instantly produce the 60-80 sales analysis reports and downloads that my client's existing MV system already had tested and installed. This proved to be quite a beast to tame as some GP 'experts' in CR took far to long just to produce the first simple sales analysis report. FRX was brought in for the budget side and that appeared to be a little better. But 4 months after the switch was thrown, they still haven't been able to print a balance sheet. The inventory is a mess, orders fall through the cracks, there's around $25,000 missing from a daily cash edit-list where they used to have a $0.00 (zero) discrepancy. The president and his controller (the migration project manager) are the only 2 happy campers. The worker bees and their department managers give me a 'what happened to our nice system' look when i visit them in these last few weeks. The bottom line is twofold. First, they didn't review the sophistication of their existing MV system. Like many, they observed the green screens and instantly condemned it to being DOS-like and an easy replacable target. Second, they didn't match the desired features from the old to the new system, thus, many features were lost. I've spoken a few phrases regarding this migration to GP. My favorite is READY, FIRE, AIM. I have another client considering GP from Results and hopefully I can prevent a similar disaster. That phrase is Nothing is completely useless, it can always serve as a bad example. Will this company go 'belly up'? They're pretty cash heavy so they probably can patch the damage with incorporating more GP integrators. It just saddens me that they're spending so much and being so far from breaking even. Plus, I will eventually lose this client as the president loves Microsoft and the entire policy of this company is his dictate, so there's no going back. my 2 cents. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
I had an experience identical to this. One of my favorite clients (to remain nameless) tried to move from a home grown system (developed on McDonald Douglass, and migrated to UniVerse on a variety of platforms) onto Great Plains (which we eventually called Great Pains). Used their Front-Office/Back-Office solution with FRX for GL, and Fascor for warehouse. In summary... Data conversion was miserable. One MV programmer (myself) kept a whole team of SQL data experts busy with data. Once the data was finally scrubbed, applications tested, they flipped the almighty switch. Integration failed miserably. Orders were taking anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds PER RECORD to move from one system to another. The integration would bomb and duplicate sales orders would be generated causing double shipping with no record of the event happening. After a year of arguing with the system and making every attempt to make it work, they went back to their UV system. My understanding is that the total loss due to the tech side alone was over 2 mil. This doesn't even begin to touch the cost of lost merchandise, lost customers, lost sales, etc. The only thing we got out of the exercise was wouldn't it be cool if we could get this report out of our UV system, which, for many of the requests, was done easily. Oh, I left out the fact that prior to conversion to GP, the entire shop was running on a single HP Net server, dual 66 MHz processors, 5GB HDD space. (no those numbers are not typo's). The GP system was installed on 5 state-of-the-art servers, running dual 1 GHz or better processors, 4-16 GB memory, etc. The GP solution was a snail compared to the old UV. When moving back, we did put UV on one of the nice new servers. Was amazing how fast it ran! Moral? Maybe what you got ain't so bad? Maybe a clean up and some new screens would be cheaper? Maybe even new hardware? Thanks, --Glenn. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 2:03 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV I must add my 2 cents to this MV migration thing. One of my main clients just finished a year-long conversion from Results to Great Plains. GP is basically QuickBooks on steroids compared to Results. Nice screens and lots of helper screens. But basically a mis-match on fields and functionality. (Results is akin to SHIMS and PRIMAC) snip my 2 cents. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Colquhoun Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 6:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV At 02:59 AM 18/05/2004, Stevenson, Charles wrote: Read Things You Should Never Do, Part I, by Joel Spolsky, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog69.html, for an example from Netscape. Search for rewrite in that site's archives for articulate apologies for favoring old code. Interestingly more recently: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20030601.html They changed the name to firefox which you can download here: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ From using the above for the previous year or so it is markedly superior to ie(tabbed browsing, inbuilt search bar for google, ebay, dictionary lookups, popup blocking). Sadly it is likely only to ever have 5% market share. On the original point of dawn collecting material for future flame wars on comp.databases.theory: You got me wrong -- I'm not into flames, I'm just trying to learn why all database textbooks cling to theory related to SQL-based databases, teaching 1NF as if it were the only mathematically-valid approach. choosing only the failed conversions and ignoring the successful conversions will quickly be exposed. A much better tactic is to stay positive and sell the benefits of whatever solution you are pushing, this would involve showing how easy it is convert to and from mv systems to other existing systems. I'm really not in a selling mode, but a learning one. I'd like to better understand why companies are spending so much money on Oracle, for example, and whether they think they are getting a good ROI on their investment or simply don't know any better solution. A list of conversion failures might have nasty unintended consequences: it would show a future prospective mv customer once they chose a mv solution there was no way ever they would be able to leave. I recognize that could be a possible conclusion that one could draw. Since I'm not looking to sell, but to understand, then if that is really the case, then I want to better understand that too. I might look like I'm selling, but in this case I am really trying to understand why what I have learned related to databases in my reading and what I have seen with my eyes are so contradictory. Cheers! --dawn - Robert --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
RE: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
Not belly up but had extreme difficulties (i.e. Oxford Health Plans). They then wound up keeping some applications on MV since Oracle could not meet the demands. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dawn M. Wolthuis Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 10:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV I've tried to search the archives for some old postings and have been unsuccessful, so sorry for asking for previously posted info. I'm looking for information related to companies that moved or attempted to move from applications based on MV to Oracle or other relational databases and went belly up in the process. Thanks for any anecdotes or info you can pass along or point me to. --dawn Dawn M. Wolthuis Tincat Group, Inc. www.tincat-group.com Take and give some delight today. --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Companies going belly up converting from PICK/MV
On Sun, 16 May 2004 09:05:37 -0500, you wrote: I've tried to search the archives for some old postings and have been unsuccessful, so sorry for asking for previously posted info. I'm looking for information related to companies that moved or attempted to move from applications based on MV to Oracle or other relational databases and went belly up in the process. Thanks for any anecdotes or info you can pass along or point me to. --dawn Not belly up, but you can't leave Oxford Health Plans out. Anecdote: Million dollar bonus for transferring data from Universe to Oracle tables if done over the weekend. Not happening fast enough. Drop the constraints. Bonus received. Tables full of garbage. -- Allen Egerton [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u2ug.org/listinfo/u2-users
