Re: Source code questions

Thanks Doug for helping to clarify the situation...  Let me give you my
answers...

1)  Does the source code issue tip the scales to make you consider changing
ERP packages?
Yes.  However, this would be quite a difficult pill to swallow at this
point.  We implemented 14 plants in 14 months beginning 10/1/1998 at a cost
well in excess of $10 million.  The cost, not only in terms of dollars but
the human and cultural costs as well, would be prohibitive...  We may end
up freezing our upgrade path at V3.5.2B which makes our 5 year prepaid
Service Agreement pretty much worthless...

2)  Will you buy modules without source code?
No.  We often find bugs that we can fix ourselves without having to wait
for weeks/months for Geac to provide a solution.  We provide those fixes to
the vendor as a benefit to ourselves and the rest of the user community -
we want the fix in standard product so we don't have to maintain the mod.
We have discovered quite a number of anomolous results in the manufacturing
system alone that we never could have found or PROVED were bugs without the
source code...  I want the control over my environment and to not have to
be at the mercy of an enourmous/non-responsive giant software vendor.

3) If approached by a company thinking of buying System 21, will you
recommend they purchase the software?
I liked Stu's response to this one so I'm going to steal it and modify it
(an appropriate metaphore for the topic of Source Code don't you
think...?).
I would try and present both sides and leave them to make up their own
minds.  There's a lot I like in system 21, there are also a fair few
annoyances.  And I would make sure they knew that they will probably need
to modify the package and that they would be locked into paying whatever
Geac demanded for their services...  Not just for the original mod, but for
every service pack and upgrade they would have to do in the future as
well...

While we do not use 3rd party vendors to modify our code, I know there are
a lot of JBA customers out there who do not have an IT staff capable of
making and maintaining mods and everything else that goes along with
that...  It is a very lucrative revenue stream and Geac is attempting to
turn it into a monopoly for themselves.  Instead of breaking up Microsoft
the Justice Department should be looking into Geac's monopolistic
tendencies...  Ooops I forgot, the court just did rule against them for
that very thing...

Thanks.


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