R&D Spending

I take some issue with the series of statements that boil down to R&D
spending reductions having a negative impact on the installed customer
base.  I don't see how that is realistically true.

Only a tiny fraction of the installed base follows the upgrade path
closely.  Most of us use get a product, modify it to meet our needs, and
stay on it as long as we possibly can.  Meanwhile we whine about the
cost of support, and/or throw a fit when informed that support is being
discontinued on our 6 year old version that we have modified beyond
recognition anyway.  For this group, reduced R&D will effectively
lengthen the life of an existing version, and so is in fact good.

Anyone disagree?

How many of you are realistically considering V8 as an option for the
next system?

Have those of you who would answer No considered the the order of
magnitude increase in difficulty and complexity entailed in a migration
to JD Edwards, SAP, Oracle, or even one of the AS400-specific players
like Movex (Intentia), CMS or JBA?


Tom Jedrzejewicz
IS Manager, Contessa Food Products
310 832 8000
tjedrzejewicz@contessa.com
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