May 2004
What happens to companies that lose control over their systems? Or even worse, lose control over their applications and their data?
After the great technology meltdown that saw thousands of large and small technology companies go out of business, down size, or be acquired, it is scary that some companies could still put total trust and base their operations on another single company. Or worse, let another company store their corporate data as application service providers do. What happens -- not if, but when -- you have a disagreement with them, they want to raise their prices, they get acquired, there is a big lawsuit over something that happened years ago (asbestos), accounting scandals, they simply go out of business, they violated a patent (such as OPC) and now you are being sued or worse?
All of a sudden -- your business stops. How long will it take to convert your operations over to some other software system, reload all the data (which you don't have), and restart? Months? Years? Will your business still be in business that long?
You have to minimize your risks. The best way to protect your company is to run your own operations and be in charge of your own applications and data. The problem is, end users can not afford to redevelop every application and product vendors are not willing to sell their source code.
One way to reduce your risk is to use dominant standards such as Microsoft. If Microsoft were to go out of business, there would be such a huge market vacuum that other companies would rush in to be compatible with your applications and data. In fact, most Microsoft competitors (see Borland) already are compatible.
The best way to protect your company is to own the source code that conforms to the world's largest computing standards -- Microsoft.
We hate to put in another shameless plug, but here is an identifiable major problem in automation and we have found a solution. Selling source code is what we do. And you won't be dependent on us either. You have joint rights to the source code so you can get anyone you want to modify and work on the code. Yes, there are some limits to the source code -- you can not distribute the code outside of your site. But, it does solve one of the biggest problems in automation today -- how to have control over your systems without having to recreate everything.
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