Sale Strategy

[Bill Campbell]

On Sun, Apr 01, 2018, Mike Schwartz via Filepro-list wrote:
>> How do you guys manage to sale filePro today?
>> 
>> $349 per seat is a price tag and then some ... I am one that believes that
>> 
>> So, how about some tips on "filePro sale pitch" to win those ever present
>> battles!!!
>> --
>> Jose D. Lerebours
>
>     It is odd that a customer pays a few thousand dollars for a system,
>runs it for 15 years as the "heart and life-blood" of their business, then
>complains about paying another couple of thousand dollars that will probably
>carry the system forward another 15 years.  I bet they don't get 15 years of
>dependable life out of their delivery trucks or their office furniture...
>
>     Since they are happy with their old SCO operating system, why switch
>that to Linux?  I'm sure you can find hardware that will still run the SCO
>operating system.  Bill Campbell and others here on the list can probably
>assist you in virtualizing their old SCO server, if they simply want to
>virtualize.  

While I have been able to virtualize SCO OpenServer systems under
VMware, using dd to create disk images, I wouldn't recommend it
unless there are other major non-FilePro components that only
work under OpenServer.  The setup for handling the disk images
under VMware is a bit tricky, and I would have to do some digging
to remember what I did.

Moving FilePro applications and data to Linux systems is pretty
easy, and things like shell scripts transfer easily as well.

I'm leaning strongly though to running most mission critical
systems to virtual machines (VMs), usually VMware on Linux, largely
because it's very easy to copy and move VMs to new hosts without
having to worry about changes in the underlying Operating System
and installed installations.

I have several clients running software I wrote on OpenServer
years ago where they're running in VMware VMs, only one is
running the OpenServer under a VM (our in-house accounting),
while the others are running Suse Pro 9 Server, the most
recent Linux system that runs SCO COFF binaries.

Generally speaking, I think it's best to make the move to Linux
rather than try to keep the SCO system alive.

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www2.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
Mobile:         (206) 947-5591  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
Fax:            (206) 232-9186  Skype: jwccsllc

Freedom from prices is freedom from responsibility. You can simply pass
laws, using the magic wand of government to satisfy your own desires at
unspecified costs to be paid by others. -- Thomas Sowell Aug 2000