Hello Stuart Moore & everyone else, on 06-Jan-2005 at 17:01 you (Stuart Moore) wrote:
> I am not sure that I understand your points exactly. I feared so. :-) ASK>> Those that actually do are either very, I beg your pardon, stupid, or ASK>> rather big, so that they have their own IT administration and end ASK>> user support (be it internal or outsourced, doesn't matter). > I think that is a bit of a leap. It is not always stupid to retain in > house and a golden principle is do not outsource what you do not > understand (and like most principles there are cases where this does not > apply). Lets clarify what we're actually talking about... were do you see The Bat! fit to a company? I think, its the smallest, small and (very maybe) medium business', something like 1 to 25 seats at max (at the cost of 25 licenses of TB you get a MS SBS2003 which includes Exchange Server 2003 + Outlook, I'm taking this example because the "groupware" aspect becomes more and more important, and TB is nothing but the mailer). If none of the employees is - by accident :) - a computer freak, there's no way that they can pay the expenses for an inhouse IT administration. Neither can they afford to pay MS, IBM or whoever else for a support contract. They may have a key user maybe. They need an external IT service provider that cares for the clients, the server(s), and the software. Even if they buy their hardware themselves at Dell, they need someone to tell them what to buy, or else they'll end up with a 1x 40GB ATA drive in the server - and nothing else! If there are companies of that size who still think they can do the installation and maintenance themselves... they're doomed to fail. They'll burn a massive ammount of money at the attempt to accomplish what a professional does in no time - and thats what I meant with "stupid". Companies of that size need an external IT service partner they can trust. ASK>> SMB's should leave the support to their system builder/integrator, thats ASK>> the way customer relations are meant to work... > What customer relations? I meant the actual meaning, not that CRM whatever software or process type of thing. :-) The customer needs a good relation to its IT service provider, he must be able to trust these guys, they're the ones he should be calling when he has a problem, not MS, not IBM, not Ritlabs. ASK>> I don't go and try to fix my car myself. I don't go and call the vendor for ASK>> help. I go to the nearest expert that I know (a mechanic, a garage) and ASK>> tell them I have a problem. They fix it, they're the experts. > Indeed. I do expect that they can get help from Ford, GM, etc though. Exactly! Just like the IT partner of a small company will need the occasional help from Ritlabs. But its not necessary for the end user to get support from Rit. > My apologies for completely misunderstanding your point. No harm done! -- Best regards, Alexander (http://www.neurowerx.de - ICQ 238153981) using TB! v3.0.2.10 Home on Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 Whoever wins to a great scientific truth will find a poet before him in the quest. -- Frederick Wood-Jones ________________________________________________ Current version is 3.0.1.33 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
