[log in to unmask],Net wrote at 10:46 on 15/10/98
about "RE: MediDesk":
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Sm stands for the late departed or at least moribund system Surgery
Manager.
extended DOS, runs nicely under Windows, like Vision uses the rather
elderly format of FoxPro data files, has a WIMP (Windows-like) CUA
compliant interface (sort of semi-visual, which is different from
half-blind) and has always been distinguished from other systems by
having the shortest learning curve of any.
It has been described as the first sustem to actually be designed to
a specification (which might be taken as a little unkind by David
Markwell, who built Abies System 4 but I suspect without being there
that there was quite an element of growing in that, and that also
the needs were not so clearly defined as they could be when SM was
written)
It was produced by MicroSolutions. RHI bought Micro, GOK why, it
has been suggested that this was in order to secure Icon Fundholder
- also at that time owned by Micro, but given the prompt if unduly
drawn out demise of fundholding to suggest that RHI had done that
would be to suggest that they had committed an act whose commercial
idiocy would be hard to follow - unless by telling all users of SM
that they would be supported in parallel to Vision and the other
legacy Vamp product... which nobody I have met believed except some
people still working for RHI say they did ... for two years before
then telling them that it would not be and _buy Vision_
>Excuse my ignorance, but what is SM?
You asked - OK.
Bitter? Me? Yes!! And a majority of SM users as well, who would
regard the best offer that RHI culd make as being an offer to dry up
and blow away, or at least release the source code into the hands of
somebody both competent and inclined to maintain it (even one would
be a step in the right direction)
It was a nice system, I enjoyed using it, and it is interesting to
observe how much the necessity to do the couple of things one _has_
to do clears ones mind about the merits of RFA 1234+
Meditel took over AMC. I seriously doubt if they made any money at
all out of it.
I doubt that Vamp have made any money out of taking over Micro/SM.
EMIS certainly have made money out of both takeovers, but not
necessarily satisfied customers. Basically nobody comes out of it
well.
No doubt it was sheer coincidence that RHI shareprices dived a while
afterwards, and I understand that the move of the MD was purely
inroder for him to tackle the challenges of introducing the Euro, a
promotion or at worst a move sideways.
So, my advice to GPs and to PCGs. Own your system. Own the source
code so that you can fire one company and hire another to maintain
it. Don't (and I stress that this is purely personal advice based
on my own observations and experiences) buy one from Reuters, and if
you have one of those, get rid of it as soon as you conveniently
can. But you will of course make your own decisions based on your
own needs or pereceptions of them.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley
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