Re: BPCS Version 8

Dear kmiller,

Thank you for your reply to my questions however I was
looking for a response from a real company in the
field who has either installed V8 or is in process of
doing so. Having SSA tell me how good it is equates to
a car salesman telling you how good the car is during
a test drive. I had a very bad experiences with V6 and
don't want to be a pioneer all over again.  I do
question some things that you say however:

1. I don't know what ARC is (I did look at the SSA web
page). All good software development methodologies do
however include Alpha and Beta testing.  If you ddn't
beta test V8 then either you have poor development
guidelines (approved by ARC) or skirted them
altogether in V8.

2.  I didn't even know that the process manager
product was for sale.  Is anyone using it? If so, how
many?

Regards,
Tom S.

p.s. - Thanks to jaliberty for letting me know that
the conversion programs aren't even available yet for
V8.
--- kmiller@ssax.com wrote:
>
> I wanted to take a moment to respond to the
> following message, posted by Tom
> Soprano on 8/13/01, but as I was not involved in all
> decisions concerning
> V8.0.00, I took some time to discuss each of these
> with Martin Ambrose, VP
> Solution Management.   Here is the feedback I got
> from Martin.
>
> 1.   V8 was never beta tested.  It was developed in
> 3 different R & D locations
> (Chicago, Toronto and the UK) and never really
> functionally tested together.
>
> Where SSA GT, or indeed any software vendor chooses
> to develop or design their
> solutions is not the issue.   SSA  GT has often used
> resources from these three
> sites.  The real issue is the calibre of the process
>  employed to bring the
> product to market.  The processes that SSA GT uses
> were independently audited
> by ARC.    For more information on this process, go
> to our web page and look
> under the product/industry pages.
>
> SSA GT has demonstrated it capabilities through the
> timely and effective release
> of V6.1.01 in April of 2000, Process Manager  in
> January of 2001 and of course
> V8.0.00 in June of this year.
>
> BPCS V8.0.00 has been completely unit and system
> tested based on very rigorous
> test scripts.  Prior to release, it was put through
> it's paces with the field
> organizaiton with specialists from services,
> pre-sales and industry business
> champions which resulted in a positive bill of
> health.  SSA GT is very pleased
> and excited with this release.
>
> 2.   The CPG User Group was so upset at the lack of
> testing that SSA decided to
> pull back from the general availability to
> controlled distribution instead
> inorder to allow for some type of testing at the
> client level.
>
> This is simply incorrect.
>
> 3.   We were also awaiting V8.1 which we were told
> by the last CEO would be
> delivered in December of this year.  Now we are now
> hearing that it will not
> happen and no new date has been scheduled. Quite
> disappointing to us as the new
> company is being to lose credibility.
>
> As with any development plan, it gets reviewed on an
> on-going basis.  There have
> been no published changes to the plan to date.
> However, all will be revealed at
> the September user conference.
>
> I hope this helps answer some of the questions
> raised in Tom's e-mail.  If you
> have individual questions, as always feel free to
> direct them to me
> individually.
>
> Kari Miller
> Director, NA Business Consulting
>
>
>
>
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