We are a purely Delphi shop. No worrying about distributing different DLL's with every version like Visual Basic. No problems connecting to our data on the AS/400 systems. No problems, it just worked.
I bet we can kiss Delphi goodbye to be 'replaced' with some bastardization of visual basic.
Every single hotel is different. Each one has a different number of rooms, room types, rates and rate schedules. Some may have resteraunts and/or catering facilities.
You also have to take into account the hundreds of different credit card platforms, in-room movie systems, call accounting systems, voice mail systems, in room game systems, etc...
There is no way to vanilla install these systems.
BTW, the install job is being done by Synergy. Strangly enough, they are located in the same building as Cendant in Phoenix, AZ.
This so called 'upgrade' was annouced about 2 years ago. the official label is 'Project PowerUp'. In reality, it is the biggest piece of horse-shit FUBAR'ed rollout I have ever had the displeasure of even being remotely involved in.
I am the lead analyst at a property management company that owns several hotels that are being forced to perform this upgrade. I will not go into the down and dirty details of this since it is not appropriate/. material. Suffice to say that if this was a vendor we had hired, we would have dragged them into the parking lot after the first day, tied them to a tree and beat them with a keyboard. An old IBM 5250 keyboard.
There are three different property management systems available. Each property is assigned a system based on the size of the hotel/motel. The three systems are:
1- Linux based system from HSS (well it was HSS about 18 months ago, its beeen bought out several times during this upgrade). 2- Win 95/Lantastic (no shit) system from MSI 3- Win NT system from Anasazi
The Linux system is the bottom of the line system for the smallest hotels. Virtually no support for call accounting, in-room movie, credit card, point of sale, catering or voice mail systems. This system is the pits. Its not the fault of Linux, its just a poor product from a mediocre (at best) software company.
The MSI system sucks as well. The fileserver is Windows 95 using Lantastic networking. What mental giant thought this up? These are critical systems that need to run 24x7. This is the system we've been stuck with and its actually semi-stable after massive tweaking.
The Anasazi system is not even being installed. After two years it still cannot pass quality control.
The bottom line....
This install IS NOT GOOD PRESS FOR LINUX!
Due the the crappy software installed on the linux system and the the total lack of ability of the Cendant and Synergy (who are doing the actual nstalls) installers, these installs are almost always complete failures. The small franchise owners who do not have a computer department and who are not familier with computers are litterally begging to be 'upgraded' to the MSI system.
Arrgh! My brain hurts just thinking about this (*^$%$@$! I need beers....
The only thing any copy protection does is piss off the customer who buys the software. I don't know about you, but my machines change constantly, especially my wintel game machine. If my software stopped working becuase I upgraded my CPU and it had a different serial number I would be one exteremly pissed off puppy!!
How the machine looks is always a consideration. Given the choice, when we are buying a machine for the computer room, assuming 2 machine are identical in function, we'll buy the black box with lots of blinking lights over the off-white / beige no flash system. Clients who see the computer room are much more impressed by this than the 'plain' computer boxes.
Also, think of the standard homeowner. Do they want an f-ugly beige computer rectangular box sitting in the den/living room or do they want one that looks 'cool' and matches the couch/carpet/wallpaper?
Does it matter to everyone? Of course not... many of us on slashdot probably don't even have the cover on the case most of the time... but I do remember a very popular slashdot article earlier this year about different ways to paint a case.
I remember having a hayse... for about day. Asked for an AppleCat (1200 baud with the 202 (or was it 212?) card) for the 'ol//e but got a micromodem ][e (300 baud) instead. Took it back the next day and got the right modem (the applecat of course). Doing a 2 way transfer while chatting in the text window and 1200 was pretty damn cool back them... Then all the AE sites started popping up. I ran one on a 15 meg external mountain that would never spin up. Had to remove the cover and spin the platters >by hand to get it going.... I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
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We are a purely Delphi shop. No worrying about distributing different DLL's with every version like Visual Basic. No problems connecting to our data on the AS/400 systems. No problems, it just worked.
I bet we can kiss Delphi goodbye to be 'replaced' with some bastardization of visual basic.
Bleh...
Every single hotel is different. Each one has a different number of rooms, room types, rates and rate schedules. Some may have resteraunts and/or catering facilities.
You also have to take into account the hundreds of different credit card platforms, in-room movie systems, call accounting systems, voice mail systems, in room game systems, etc...
There is no way to vanilla install these systems.
BTW, the install job is being done by Synergy. Strangly enough, they are located in the same building as Cendant in Phoenix, AZ.
This so called 'upgrade' was annouced about 2 years ago. the official label is 'Project PowerUp'. In reality, it is the biggest piece of horse-shit FUBAR'ed rollout I have ever had the displeasure of even being remotely involved in.
/. material. Suffice to say that if this was a vendor we had hired, we would have dragged them into the parking lot after the first day, tied them to a tree and beat them with a keyboard. An old IBM 5250 keyboard.
I am the lead analyst at a property management company that owns several hotels that are being
forced to perform this upgrade. I will not go into the down and dirty details of this since it is not appropriate
There are three different property management systems available. Each property is assigned a system based on the size of the hotel/motel. The three systems are:
1- Linux based system from HSS (well it was HSS about 18 months ago, its beeen bought out several times during this upgrade).
2- Win 95/Lantastic (no shit) system from MSI
3- Win NT system from Anasazi
The Linux system is the bottom of the line system for the smallest hotels. Virtually no support for call accounting, in-room movie, credit card, point of sale, catering or voice mail systems. This system is the pits. Its not the fault of Linux, its just a poor product from a mediocre (at best) software company.
The MSI system sucks as well. The fileserver is Windows 95 using Lantastic networking. What mental giant thought this up? These are critical systems that need to run 24x7. This is the system we've been stuck with and its actually semi-stable after massive tweaking.
The Anasazi system is not even being installed. After two years it still cannot pass quality control.
The bottom line....
This install IS NOT GOOD PRESS FOR LINUX!
Due the the crappy software installed on the linux system and the the total lack of ability of the Cendant and Synergy (who are doing the actual nstalls) installers, these installs are almost always complete failures. The small franchise owners who do not have a computer department and who are not familier with computers are litterally begging to be 'upgraded' to the MSI system.
Arrgh! My brain hurts just thinking about this (*^$%$@$! I need beers....
The only thing any copy protection does is piss off the customer who buys the software. I don't know about you, but my machines change constantly, especially my wintel game machine. If my software stopped working becuase I upgraded my CPU and it had a different serial number I would be one exteremly pissed off puppy!!
How the machine looks is always a consideration. Given the choice, when we are buying a machine for the computer room, assuming 2 machine are identical in function, we'll buy the black box with lots of blinking lights over the off-white / beige no flash system. Clients who see the computer room are much more impressed by this than the 'plain' computer boxes.
Also, think of the standard homeowner. Do they want an f-ugly beige computer rectangular box sitting in the den/living room or do they want one that looks 'cool' and matches the couch/carpet/wallpaper?
Does it matter to everyone? Of course not... many of us on slashdot probably don't even have the cover on the case most of the time... but I do remember a very popular slashdot article earlier this year about different ways to paint a case.
I remember having a hayse... for about day. Asked for an AppleCat (1200 baud with the 202 (or was it 212?) card) for the 'ol //e but got a micromodem ][e (300 baud) instead. Took it back the next day and got the right modem (the applecat of course). Doing a 2 way transfer while chatting in the text window and 1200 was pretty damn cool back them... Then all the AE sites started popping up. I ran one on a 15 meg external mountain that would never spin up. Had to remove the cover and spin the platters >by hand to get it going.... I'm sorry, what were we talking about?