Julian and Laurie,
>To: "GP-UK" <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Julian Bradley <[log in to unmask]>
>As a not particularly satisfied VAMP user I would still very much
SUPPORT
>Laurie Miles right to post and discuss VAMP related issues through this
>mailbase.
Absolutely, so would I. And would do so publicly but for the risk
of boring people with a continued discussion.
>I hope Laurie you will be willing to continue. I may actually migrate
from
>VAMP, depends of availability of finances, but I do agree that the user
>group has made a valuable difference and I continue to pay my
subscription.
Again, absolutely.
I am sure that _NVUG_ would not have unanimously elected me chairman.
>Julian Bradley
-----------------------------
What bothers me, and the genesis of the comment about commercialism
on an academic list, is that the stated policy of NVUG of publicly
...um, er, think of a word - "not saying exactly what they think
sometimes" - ing
while admirably polite, politic and according to their reckoning
having a definite value to their members, does align them with the
commercial interests of the company and is not perfectly defensible
should somebody be persuaded by their public uttereances that RHI is
more precisely reflective of its users' desires than say the Exeter
System supplier and that therefore they should buy VM rather than
Exeter.
The experience of SMUG with RHI is that while we were being polite
and cooperative no activity of which we approved occurred - at least
with SM - and that following forthright and public comments by
ourselves and Liverpool HA action of which we did approve appeared
to restart.
The expectation of the users is that regardless of what we do the
system will follow the path established in previous takeovers, AMC
and Genisyst (according to various users of those systems, anyway)
with minimal development, with a migration of the people in the
company whose emotional capital, promotion and intellectual property
is bound up with the taken-over system, and a domination in the
company of the managers, developers and users of the previous
system leading to very poor value for money.
The takeover of Vamp by RHI is of course completely unlike this,
since no other GP system was in place beforehand, and yet, few would
honestly argue that RHI do not show an inclination to migrate users
from VM to ViSion rather than develop the older system as
energetically. If nothing else, the unit profit on the Windows
based system is liable to be higher, as are the support costs and
the absolute value of a perfectly reasonable markup on those costs.
VM is praised even by its detractors and ex-users for its stability
and robustness - obviously nobody is going to make a business thrive
on the low level of support needed for a thoroughly understood,
simple, user-friendly system which has had so many years debugging
done on it, and the corresponding low level of profit that can be
made on those low fees.
So, I would support postings to GP-Uk or anywhere else about
anything, but deplore them if they are intended to supress or defuse
criticism with the intention of gain.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley
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