What you're looking for is a class of software called "professional services automation". There are several major software packages that are available (both hosted & on-premise). They all handle CRM, time & billing, service ticket tracking, project management, etc. Most integrate with Quickbooks for GL.
Connectwise PSA - www.connectwise.com
Autotask - www.autotask.com
Tigerpaw - http://www.tigerpawsoftware.com/
Use a combination of Groove Virtual Office & Skype to perform collaboaration activities. The licensing costs are reasonable ($229 / user) and the ability to coordinate across the Internet without having to worry about VPN connectivity or firewall traversal is wonderful. The co-edit capabilities for Word are very useful. Be sure to not skimp on training when you rollout because it will be a paradigm shift for most of your users.
We use two workspaces for each customer, one internal & one external that we share with the customer. Skype lets us keep up with co-workers at little to no cost and helps a lot with planning sessions (building proposals, SOW, project plans) etc.
The best part about both tools is that they can be shared with your partners, vendors, and customers. It's not simple to do that with any of the other solutions.
Here's how I see it playing out. Consumers are fed up with advertising on network television hence the profliferation of DVRs and time shifting. Podcasts are proving to be a terrific distribution method for regularly released programming. TV episodes sold as DVD box sets are immensley popular at $40-100 a pop.
Everyone here is saying that mobile devices are useless for video due to the length of an average movie but they forget that the average tv show is roughly 22 minutes without commercial interruption.
So how's this...ITMS starts to sell this week's episode of 'insert popular tv show name here' for $4. Well, 13 episodes later they've made $52 without the production costs of DVD. Consumers are happy because they're getting what they want with no advertising, when they want it, and they can play it on their PC, ipod, or TV (via yet to be announced device with 802.11 remote for controlling playback).
Oh and by the way, want the latest episode of Will & Grace to be sitting there for you when you get back? Just subscribe to the podcast for $34.95 / season and it'll be sitting there for you when you get home.
The cost of replacing the "OLD IRON" AS/400 is likely to be much higher than simply purchasing a group of new servers to run new applications on. Most companies that rely on AS/400, iSeries, or i5 systems have a significant investment in the application software (whether custom or vendor provided) that actually runs their business.
Plus, the question here was to build a way to get data in & out of the AS/400 to and from customers and vendors, not replace the application functions.
Not sure if you realize it but there's nothing "OLD IRON" about the AS/400, it's currently known as the i5 and is a very viable platform. Thousands of companies rely on it 24x7x365 to actually run their business as opposed to justifying a large IT department.
Valenti:
OK, so there are less than 1000 people that own oil companies in this country. We seem to do a fine job establishing public policy that is aimed at them and not the other 284.99 million. Please explain to me the difference?
TT:
Well you see Mr. Valenti, they pay us lobbyists a whole lot better than you do.
It's possible that a large percentage of the disparity could be accounted for by the gifts that we buy for each other. We're buying them jewlery, they're buying us MP3 players...
This makes perfect sense. "Buy" something on Amazon for someone but don't have it delivered. Send them an "e-card" with a link to their "gift". If they like it, they can have it delivered (shipping is already paid by buyer), if they don't then they can use the item's cost and shipping costs as credit towards whatever item they'd really like. Makes sense to me.
I think that when judging the effectiveness of computers in the classroom we too often try to think of the computers as the teachers rather than tools with which to teach. We could write an article about the 10 billion (guess) that gets spent on furniture for classrooms every year and say that it isn't increasing our math scores if we're making kids sit on the floor and write on the wall.
Until teachers embrace the computers as tools to teach with and augment their teaching plans with them then there will always be complaints that we're wasting money on technology for technology's sake. Luddite companies do the same thing when they point to IT as a cost center and fail to utilize their investment to provide return.
Computers in and of themselves cannot fix our education system. But used correctly they are a ways to a means and can certainly improve the way we educate our youth.
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What you're looking for is a class of software called "professional services automation". There are several major software packages that are available (both hosted & on-premise). They all handle CRM, time & billing, service ticket tracking, project management, etc. Most integrate with Quickbooks for GL. Connectwise PSA - www.connectwise.com Autotask - www.autotask.com Tigerpaw - http://www.tigerpawsoftware.com/
Use a combination of Groove Virtual Office & Skype to perform collaboaration activities. The licensing costs are reasonable ($229 / user) and the ability to coordinate across the Internet without having to worry about VPN connectivity or firewall traversal is wonderful. The co-edit capabilities for Word are very useful. Be sure to not skimp on training when you rollout because it will be a paradigm shift for most of your users.
We use two workspaces for each customer, one internal & one external that we share with the customer. Skype lets us keep up with co-workers at little to no cost and helps a lot with planning sessions (building proposals, SOW, project plans) etc.
The best part about both tools is that they can be shared with your partners, vendors, and customers. It's not simple to do that with any of the other solutions.
Everyone here is saying that mobile devices are useless for video due to the length of an average movie but they forget that the average tv show is roughly 22 minutes without commercial interruption.
So how's this...ITMS starts to sell this week's episode of 'insert popular tv show name here' for $4. Well, 13 episodes later they've made $52 without the production costs of DVD. Consumers are happy because they're getting what they want with no advertising, when they want it, and they can play it on their PC, ipod, or TV (via yet to be announced device with 802.11 remote for controlling playback).
Oh and by the way, want the latest episode of Will & Grace to be sitting there for you when you get back? Just subscribe to the podcast for $34.95 / season and it'll be sitting there for you when you get home.
Seems like a great idea to me.
The cost of replacing the "OLD IRON" AS/400 is likely to be much higher than simply purchasing a group of new servers to run new applications on. Most companies that rely on AS/400, iSeries, or i5 systems have a significant investment in the application software (whether custom or vendor provided) that actually runs their business. Plus, the question here was to build a way to get data in & out of the AS/400 to and from customers and vendors, not replace the application functions. Not sure if you realize it but there's nothing "OLD IRON" about the AS/400, it's currently known as the i5 and is a very viable platform. Thousands of companies rely on it 24x7x365 to actually run their business as opposed to justifying a large IT department.
TT: Well you see Mr. Valenti, they pay us lobbyists a whole lot better than you do.
It's possible that a large percentage of the disparity could be accounted for by the gifts that we buy for each other. We're buying them jewlery, they're buying us MP3 players...
Gift Certificates: The perfect thing to buy when you don't care at all.
At least in this system the gift receiver will know that you spent a little bit of time thinking about them and might possibly appreciate their gift
This makes perfect sense. "Buy" something on Amazon for someone but don't have it delivered. Send them an "e-card" with a link to their "gift". If they like it, they can have it delivered (shipping is already paid by buyer), if they don't then they can use the item's cost and shipping costs as credit towards whatever item they'd really like. Makes sense to me.
I think that when judging the effectiveness of computers in the classroom we too often try to think of the computers as the teachers rather than tools with which to teach. We could write an article about the 10 billion (guess) that gets spent on furniture for classrooms every year and say that it isn't increasing our math scores if we're making kids sit on the floor and write on the wall.
Until teachers embrace the computers as tools to teach with and augment their teaching plans with them then there will always be complaints that we're wasting money on technology for technology's sake. Luddite companies do the same thing when they point to IT as a cost center and fail to utilize their investment to provide return.
Computers in and of themselves cannot fix our education system. But used correctly they are a ways to a means and can certainly improve the way we educate our youth.