[Am-Info] Who is this fellow?

[John J. Urbaniak]

Erick Andrews wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:37:52 -0800, Simon Cooke wrote:
>
> >Geoffrey wrote:
> >>> >And if you think three's not significant, please remember that this is
> >not
> >>> >a
> >>> >horizontal app.  It's also quite expensive, selling for $4,000 to $6,500
> >>> >depending on user requirements.
> >>>
> >>> Ummm... that's not particularly expensive. I'm used to seeing $40,000
> >price
> >>> tags on custom business software such as yours.
> >>
> >> You forget Simon, John doesn't have to jack the price up to cover the
> >> ludicrious Windows licenses...
> >
> >Who said anything about 'ludicrous windows licenses'? That's how much most
> >people would expect to pay for any platform... In the past, I've seen VB
> >apps that wrapped around IBM 370 code sold for $40,000. Windows not
> >included.
> >
> >Try buying anything from Computer Associates, and then you'll see what a
> >price tag really is. John's software is *way* cheap. This is not necessarily
> >a bad thing. And John's not Windows has *nothing* to do with that.
> >
>
> Actually it does if you understand current marketing.
>
> To compete against a monopoly on a different platform than MS Windows,
> one has to be able to offer a product that not only competes with the
> application, but overcomes the OS monopoly as well.
>
> And to be sure, CA doesn't have what John has, so your comparison
> is moot:  apples and oranges.

Please remember, I have to include the price of the HARDWARE in the systems I
sell.  Microsoft has [illegally] destroyed all competition in the OS preload
arena, so I had to learn how to assemble PCs and package my software along with
the hardware as a turnkey product.

Of course, that increases my costs, but it's worth it to prove that a non-MS
system CAN be sold.

Here is a quote from one of my customers, (a furniture manufacturer in North
Carolina):

=============

"We have been using Aviar's OS/2-based Oz of Prevention since January 1999. We
have generated over 6,000 Work Orders in this time frame.

During that time, the Oz CMMS program has never crashed. We have never had to
reboot our computer as the result of a freeze, lock-up or 'Blue Screen.'. We have
not used Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart. We have not lost any data, nor wasted time
rebooting. We have not had to re-install the Operating System or Oz itself.

In our opinion, Oz has been 99.9% reliable. It is most certainly a solid product
and a good investment. "

============

That's almost *three years* of daily usage without one single crash, reboot, Blue
Screen, or re-install.

And Simon says I should convert to Windows?

You will never understand, Simon, my level of comimittment to quality and
reliability.  It's not in your makeup.

John