[Info-vax] For sale: VAXstation 4000/90 128MB Fully Working and Tested

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 7/1/2022 6:32 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 7/1/22 18:02, Chris Townley wrote:
>> On 01/07/2022 22:34, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 7/1/2022 12:54 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> On 7/1/2022 10:52 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>>> For some reason Arne, you seem to feel that that which isn't 
>>>>>> broken must
>>>>>> regardless be fixed.  I just don't understand such.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do believe that I mentioned that the Codis application/ERP did what
>>>>>> the users needed, is successfully running their businesses, and just
>>>>>> about anything else would be a step down, not up.
>>>>>
>>>>> Progress is not about replacing things that are broken. Progress
>>>>> is about replacing things that work with something that work better.
>>>>
>>>> SAP seldom works better.
>>>
>>> If the goal is destroying the user, then SAP works very well ...
>>
>> SAP Relies on the business changing its business processes to match 
>> SAP, where I imagine that most of us wrote software to fit around the 
>> way the business worked.
> 
> And that was the argument I have always presented for any talk of
> moving to a canned program.  As far back as the 80's when places
> like Radio Shack (back when they actually had Computer Stores and
> sold things like Xenix, COBOL, Fortran, Informix and other real
> computer systems) offered AR, AP, Payroll, GL, Inventory, etc.  You
> had to change your business model to the model built into their
> packages.   Fast forward a couple decades.  Banner knocks at the
> University's door and bingo here we go again.  Throw out all the
> in house written systems that were designed around how we did business
> and bring in Banner changing how we did business to how Banner
> perceived business.

SAP can be customized.

25 M$, 50 M$, 75 M$, ... - just say stop when you are out of money. :-)

But customers (at least the smart customers) want to limit
customization of SAP and similar products.

They understand why they are going with a standard package
instead of a custom application. They want all the features
available now and all the new features coming in the future
without paying 100% for them (share cost with the 100 or 1000
or 10000 or 100000 other customers).

If everything is customized then the current functionality
and the future enhancements becomes approx. as expensive as
a custom application.

If customization is kept minimal then there is a chance
that the business case for choosing a standard package
hold.

So potential customizations need to be carefully evaluated.
"We want X because our old system did X and before that
we did X using paper" is not worth it. "We want X because
it would be nice to have but doesn't really impact revenue
or cost" is not worth it. Only "We need X because otherwise
we will loose revenue and/or our cost will increase" is good.

Arne