Re: Just Ask The Vendor: Can OpenVMS Scale Down?

Karsten Nyblad wrote:
Dave Froble wrote:
I'm pretty sure that the popularity of packaged solutions is in part due to the beancounters in charge of companies not understanding that many times their company knows it's business better than a generic application vendor, and therefore force such generic solutions onto the company. There are also plenty of arguments against in-house development, some of which have merit.

I have been working for an ERP supplier. I talked to one of the experienced guys, who told me that his experience was that ERP projects were more likely to be a success if the customer chose to adapt the organization to the ERP system and not the other way around. One reason is that ERP systems tend to support best business practice, and because of that adapting to the ERP systems meant dropping bad old customs and getting people to be more efficient without working harder.

Well I'm sure that an ERP vendor would have such notions. What else would they think?

The other side of this is that a company that is a leader in it's industry is such a leader for some reasons. Usually it's because they understand the industry better, and do a better job than others. When they adapt their organization to a generic piece of software, they can lose that advantage they had and become just another average company. So sure, the ERP project is more successful, but the company becomes less successful. A win for the ERP vendor, a loss for the customer.

Is this suppost to be a 'good thing'?

An example of standardization is giving up the advantages of Alpha to use the generic itanic. Where has this gone? One of the alleged better Unix operating systems is dead. VMS is now dependent upon another company continuing to produce the itanic. A leading edge company decided to become just another follower with no advantages.

There is also the assumption that the company had 'bad old customs' and was not working efficiently. I'd suggest that this assumption is invalid for a company that is doing well and leading in their industry.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486
.

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