RE: Sierra Data Collection

[John Manilla <jmanilla@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff,

Thanks for your comments on Sierra.  If I did not know your were operating
under this impression of Sierra I could never have cleared these issues up!

I hope I am not violating any rules on the JBA list by responding, but I
feel I must respond to this message.  I promise to keep my comments in the
future to the issues on the list and I will not try to sell any products
directly through the JBA Users List.

1) Sierra Consultants Ltd. has a contractual business partner relationship
with JBA/GEAC
2) Sierra has a copy of System/21 with licensed access codes (we receive new
access codes annually from JBA/GEAC)
3) Sierra has over 253 installations of our data collection software in the
US, Canada & Mexico.  There are a large number of JBA Sites in our install
base.  Our people have not all been working on Lear.  Lear went live over a
year ago. Lear is now being supported by our Help Desk.
4) The demonstration that was provided by Sierra to Harvard Industries did
in fact not go well.  Sierra was implementing a new demonstration
environment the day of their demo and unfortunately the environment did not
work properly.  We have had a number of successful demonstrations of our JBA
Interface since the Harvard Industries demonstration and are ready to show
anyone that would like to see a world class data collection system in
action!  One of the prices that is paid by show a live interface with JBA is
the potential that something may go wrong.  I have put in action an
automated refresh program that restores our JBA Demonstration Environment
back to its original state.  We now run this before starting a new
demonstration so that we can be assured that what we expect to demonstrate
will in fact work.


Sincerely,

John Manilla, CPA, CDP                  mailto:JManilla@sierraltd.com

President and COO
                                     
Sierra Consultants Ltd.                   Tel: (616) 530-9393 x1101
2976 Ivanrest - Suite 200               Fax: (616) 530-6311
Grandville, MI 49418  USA             URL: http://www.sierraltd.com

****************************************************************
AS/400 Data Collection using Client/Server Technology without PC's in
the middle or the overhead of 5250 Sessions!
****************************************************************
Sierra specializes in AS/400 based Client/Server Data Collection Solutions
(without the necessity of a PC-in-the-middle or the overhead and lack of 
redundancy with 5250 or Screen Mapping technology).  Sierra has experience
implementing data collection systems to interface with JD Edwards, JBA 
System 21, BLIS-400, CA-PRMS, MAC-PAC, BPCS and MAPICS.  

If you would like assistance with AS/400 based Data Collection, contact 
me at mailto:JManilla@sierraltd.com
****************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff_Klipa/Harvard@harvardind.com
[mailto:Jeff_Klipa/Harvard@harvardind.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 10:09 AM
To: JBAUSERS-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Sierra Data Collection


We are ourselves in the middle of an implementation project for SFDC and
did consider Sierra as a potential vendor...  I asked our project manager
what his experience was with them and this is what they said...

"We went there to Sierra and weren't that impressed, they were very
unorganized, their demo was very poorly planned and displayed,  and they
seemed only sales oriented.  Plus they were running a pirate version of
JBA, which made us uneasy.  They claim they're a JBA Business Partner but
[Our JBA (Geac) project manager] tells us they're not.  Too many shady
things..."

This is apparently why we're not using Sierra...

The inference I can make from this is that we were not big enough for them
to pay us the same kind of attention they paid to a giant like Lear...  Or
perhaps they already had all of their best people assigned to the Lear
project and that left the second string for us...

I don't know, I wasn't there so I cannot comment from personal
experience...  I can only share what our implementation team's experience
was during the vendor selection process and I hope to present a more
balanced view...  I'm glad Lear had a good experience with them...  As I'm
sure other customers have had as well...  Unfortunately, sometimes things
don't always go well in the demo so we'll never know if Sierra would have
been better then the vendor we eventually chose...  NuTech...
http://www.nutechsystems.com/

NuTech is having their own share of problems getting our first plant up and
running so I'm not prepared to give them a glowing review just yet
either...

Good luck...


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