RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

["Chuck Lewis" <chuck.lewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Cool Joe :-)

We have them spread out all over the warehouses. Shipping, Receiving, etc.
Dusty and dirty is the nature of the beast (wholesale distributor of
plumbing, heating and cooling equipment and supplies). Last place was a "key
ingredient maker for the food and beverage industries" and processes could
range from wet to extremely dusty (ever see 200 pallets with 50 60lb bags of
cocoa on each one loaded into a process ?) :-)

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 2:44 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

> From: Chuck Lewis
> 
> No offense to you but my last job was at a very large manufacturing
> company
> and I am now at a distribution company. In both places there are terminals
> in heavy use and that is NOT going to be changing anytime soon. There are
> areas that simply do not need PC's and what it would take to keep one
> running in those areas if they were needed would be basically cost
> prohibitive.

No offense taken, Chuck.  My background is manufacturing systems, so I
understand the issue; you don't stick a $1500 PC next to a drill press if
you can avoid it.  At the same time, in my experience the locations where
terminals are required typically are low-volume applications, and so could
conceivably run even on a zero-interactive machine.  Sort of like Monty
Python, when we say NO interactive, we means some, but not much.

The exception of course is where you are using a terminal emulator for data
entry such as in automated scanning equipment and the like, and we've found
that many of the newer handhelds support browser applications just fine.

Another option is to get two machines; one for your primary workload and a
very small one for the interactive.  The entry level machines typically come
with a small amount of interactive CPW, and the combined monthly cost of two
i5 machines (and the concomitant drop in software tier) is often less than a
single older machine.

Joe