The Gazette 1984

APRIL. 1984

GAZ E T TE

of the original party involved wished to purchase systems. The Committee, with the assistance of Systems Dynamics, was asked to enter final negotiations with the two " f r o nt r unn e r s" with a view to making a final assessment of their capabilities and of also ascertaining the costs for an office midway in size between the two original specimen offices. Either of the two remaining suppliers was in a position to meet the criteria required by the Committee. However, following these further negotiations, a majority of the subscribers decided to proceed with the Comp a ny which had first offered to set up service facility in Dublin. Certain reductions were negotiated for a g r oup purchase and a number of medium sized firms have decided to enter a co-ordinated purchase deal. Copies of the report are still available. They should still be useful for anybody considering embarking on an investigation of the market-place. Any firm may purchase same in return for a contribution to its size as detailed above. Lessons Learned During the work of the Commi t t ee each member learned a numb er of valuable lessons f r om his exposure to the market, of which the more useful ones are summarised below:— 1. Having originally set its brief to avoid a considera- tion of word-processing, the Committee came to the conclusion that for the smaller office computerised accounts and word-processing should be considered together. In most cases, the expense of a word-

asked to provide a more detailed specification. All of the four are essentially United Kingdom in origin, and their limited support presence in this country considerably reduced their appeal. All four of the suppliers corresponded in considerable detail to the more rigorous final specification. Two were judged bv the Committee to be less attractive than the remaining two. One was rejected because it was not quite so attractive or easy to use as the remaining systems and was running on somewhat old-fashioned hardware. The second was rejected on the grounds of considerable uncertainty regarding the c ommi tme nt of the supplier to the legal profession, cost and, finally, because the hardware came from a great variety of sources. The latter point gave rise to concern that it would be difficult to provide effective service for the system and that only the software house itself could maintain the unique amalgam of hardware. The final two systems ran " n e c k - a nd - n e c k ". One had the advantage of a number of impressive sales in this country and considerable customer satisfaction, but appeared less flexible and was initially reluctant to commit itself to providing fulltime service b a c kup based in this country. The other, whilst havinga very impressive U.K. sales record, had no existing customers in this country but was prepared to commit itself to set up a service base in Dublin and seemed to be in a better position to react to hardware developments and expansion in the customer's volume of work. Following the completion of this stage of its work, a meeting of all the contributors to the funds of the Committee was convened. It was decided that a majority

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