Re: BPCS maintenance

Thank you Paul for sharing your LX experience.  It sounds like LX isn't
to the point where an upgrade is feasible...  Thanks again.

Regard,

DeeDee Virgei
Project Leader

Nelson Stud Welding, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: bpcs-l-bounces+deedee.virgei=nelsonstud.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bpcs-l-bounces+deedee.virgei=nelsonstud.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Paul Reed
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 8:54 AM
To: 'SSA's BPCS ERP System'
Subject: Re: [BPCS-L] BPCS maintenance

There have been quite a few customers that have raised concerns over
very high 'key fees' and the increase in OGS. 
If you are moving to a new processor, you won't have much of a choice in
paying the key fee. You could however, time your purchase to end of
fiscal quarter, reps are looking to make their sales numbers and may be
more willing to negotiate.

In the last few months we've seen an increase in the number of BPCS
companies switching from OGS to our BPCS Support services. (In addition
to the cost factor, we also support modifications, 3rd party packages,
interfaces, provide education and programming services, etc).
It boils down to financial calculations. If you feel the version you are
on is stable and satisfies your business requirements for the
foreseeable future, it may make sense to drop OGS until such time as new
features in BPCS warrant the expense of an upgrade. If you feel you will
want to upgrade in the next 2 years, it may make sense to keep OGS.

I use this analogy: I use Quicken. Each year they come out with a new
version, and let's say the new version costs $100. I look at what
features are included. If all I get are some new reports or different
layouts to the screen, it's not worth the investment. When Quicken began
allowing automatic downloads of stock quotes and bank/credit card
statements, that to me WAS worth the investment, as it would save me
let's say 1 hour a week for 52 weeks = 52 hours. $100/52 = $1.92 per
hour. I feel my time is worth more than $2 an hour so the expense to
upgrade was justified.

Folks at our company spent a fair amount of time reviewing LX both at
the BPCS shows and SSA demos for our clients. The most recent review was
done by a client on 4.05CD. While LX is a great product and based upon
our experience much better than SAP (in cost to implement/maintain alone
SAP can be 3x-10x more expensive), when we did our cost/benefit analysis
for the client, it didn't make sense to upgrade, and their management
concurred.
Several of our clients on version 8 also looked at LX and decided to
wait.
We think there are great things down the road. The Epiphany product
(recently acquired) will add a lot when thoroughly integrated. Some of
the other acquisitions need better integration as well. IMHO, 3 years
down the road there won't be an iseries package that's in the same
league as BPCS.

Best regards,
Paul Reed
Advanced Systems and Products (ASAP)
PR@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.BPCSPros.com




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