Rob,

I think you made the correct decision posting your needs/concerns here first as it will give a wide array of individuals the opportunity to get a 'sense' of your needs.

A couple of things which you've no doubt already thought of:

1. Take a look at Web Connection at www.west-wind.com, a product developed by Rick Strahl. Awesome for developing web-based/centric apps.

2. .NET might be the ticket on a lot of your communication needs between the retail outlets and main office. However, it is sonething of a competitor to Web Connection in the area of communicating over the net and Rick's stuff is 'out there' and proven. Still, .NET has a lot of great features to offer and candidly this is where MSFT seems to be taking the world.

3. Perhaps someone will chime in who has something already done that can be modified and help you along the time curve.

4. From what you describe it sounds like you folks have a pretty good idea of functionality. If youhave a functional needs list, based upon your current product you should be able to save some time and $$.

5. There are several highly qualified folks in your area and if you need help locating them please ask. I know a few I can call and I'll be happy to so do if you'd like.

6. Good luck!


>I am a Software Systems Analyst for Orion Telescopes & Binoculars. We are evaluating our options for upgrading our current enterprise system. The President of the company has charge me and the Vice President of Operations to evaluate the costs, benefits, and liabilities of either rewriting the existing system or purchasing an “off the shelf” enterprise system. Personally, I would love to be evolved with a rewrite of this system, but I know I do not have the expertise to go it alone. While I am comfortable with OOP and VFP and confident in my programming abilities, I have little experience with frameworks, have not developed a large n-tier system from the ground up, and understand that this sized project would take someone with more expertise than I have to make it a success. Therefore, I’m in the early stage of looking for consultants who would be available to assist in this project should the President of the company decide on a rewrite instead of purchasing a canned system. The
>President has indicated that he would prefer to work with consultants in California, but I think he’d be amiable to working with consultants outside of CA if they were the right people for the project.
>
>The timeline for the project is to make the “build vs. buy” decision by early May 2002, with a January 2004 final implementation of the new system.
>
>Here is the stated goal as handed down by the executive committee: Replace the current enterprise system with either a commercially available mail order software package or re-write our current enterprise software. Any choice will need to be scalable, with long-term technical and training support. The products(s) that we select or build will include modules for order processing, order fulfillment, warehouse management, shipping, merchandising, marketing, and point of sales. They must incorporate data warehousing, website integration and include or interface with Accounting packages and report writing software. This process will also include converting our existing data to the new database.
>
>Here are some specs of the current system:
>· Written in FoxBASE for Unix
>· A complete enterprise system including the modules listed in the stated goals
>· Over 300 individual tables, the largest of which have over 1 million records.
>· Over 1400 compiled prg files some of them over 10,000 lines of code.
>· Software runs at our corporate offices, our phone center, and retail stores.
>
>
>If this is a project you’d be interested in being involved in, and if you feel you have the expertise to lead and help me develop the foundation to make this project a success, please send me an email. Also, including information about you (or your company) and why you could help make this large scale project a success. Please include any information I could use to make the “build” option more attractive to the decision makers. Sell me so I can sell them. I know having the right consultant(s) available will make the “build” option more attractive to the decision makers.
>
>By the way, the President of the company originally developed the current enterprise system. While he has no idea of OOP and is hands off now, he understand the benefits of having our own in house system.