Re: OSS (was RE: Green screen - it's time is over/CODE/400 ) -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi jt,

Nice to meet you too. Btw, it was SMS, not MMS. SMS used to stand for Shared
Medical Systems, now it's Siemens Medical Systems.  I don't know if that was
a buy out or just a name change.  Med Series 4 is actually a bunch of
applications that run on iSeries -- AR, ADT (Admit/Discharge/Transfer),
CaseMix, MIRA (Medical Information Records Analysis, or something like
that), Electronic Billing, Expected Reimbursement, etc.  It's a pretty old
system, originally written by Intermountain Health Care (IHC) out of Utah.
I've seen a lot of comments in the code indicating modifications that came
from various customers of SMS, and it's a good thing -- not quite OSS, but
along those lines.  The major difference being that the source code is only
"open" to paying customers.

I've only been to COMMON once, and never ran for anything, so that must be
another Peter.  As far as knowledgeable posts, I hope so, but then again I'm
pretty far down the totem pole when it comes to the knowledgeable people on
this list.

Regards,
Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 425-0194 voice
909 425-0196 fax


----- Original Message -----
From: "jt" <jt@ee.net>
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 10:23 AM


> Peter,
>
> Nice to "meet" ya...
>
> I've known one or two pretty good size ISVs that do NO customization of
> their code.  (Don't recall, but I thin they still provided sourced for
their
> customers to modify).  Don't recall the companies, for sure.
>
> One POS vendor, I do recall, said that when a customer has a good idea,
they
> fold it into their package.  Very sound approach, IMV.  If it's a package
> has a big enough customer-base, and their's had one.. a change one
customer
> wants is almost certainly going to be useful to another customer anyway.
I
> think they would work out some kind of cost-sharing.  We didn't go with
the
> vendor, so have no actual experience.
>
> IIRC, MMS may have had a similar approach.
>
> <aside re: MMS>
>
> Looked at them back in '91.  They're a very sophisticated, specialized
> package that handles the complexities involved in solving
> Merchandising/Distribution/Allocation issues in Retail.  Principles name
was
> Chuck somebody.  VERY knowledgable.  Seemed like good folks, though we
> didn't end up going with them.  Didn't know if anyone was in the market
for
> something along these lines, just but thought I'd mention them.  (They're
> out of Indianapolis, BTW).
>
> </aside>
>
> Thanks for writing, Peter.  Don't recall particulars (IIRC, you ran for
> COMMON...??) but I've seen many knowledgable posts in the past, so sort-of
> already "met" you...;-)
>
> jt
>
> <aside>



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