Stan,
I believe I can answer some of your questions, but not all, and can clarify some other issues.
"Steve,
So what your saying is that since Sears is a reseller of long distance, they are probably looking at dbExpress for the same billing purposes that BT and others are. Makes sense."
I said that Sears is a reseller of long distance. They are not a major player, so I do not know if this is the application Sears has in mind, if any.
"I'm gonna show my ignorance here but can you explain, in layman's terms, how the program works? For instance, if and when BT begins using dbExpress, where will the program reside. If I'm a huge corporation, is dbExpress on my computer accessing BT's info, or is it on BT's computer feeding info? See what I mean?"
As I understand it, there are two pieces to the db Express software, the server side and the client side. The server software and the database of billing records and/or call details remains at BT's premises. The customer gets the client software that allows the customer to interactively interrogate (query) the database and obtain answers in tabular, chart, map, etc., formats..
The customer can save report formats, presumably, although not necessarily, at the client site (it's not consequential), so that the customer can obtain the same reports each month with the new monthly call data. The customer doesn't have to worry about receiving, storing, and manipulating the thousands/millions of call records involved. All that is done by computers at the server (BT) site.
The customer merely specifies what (s)he is looking for, and the relevant summary data is transmitted. The customer can drill down to the individual call record data, if desired. All communication takes place over the Internet, so the billing information is continuously available to many individuals at the same customer site, presumably simultaneously, although I do not know this for certain.
" In other words, what I'm thinking about is the healthcare industry where the internet is used to transfer large amounts of information (I assume). If I needed to get transcripts of a patients records, could dbExpress search the database of another medical facility and transfer just the information I needed in a short amount of time. Same in banking industry, or any other industry where data transfer can be slow and painful. Do you think CCC is researching any of these markets?"
I don't have the slightest idea.
Remember though, Stan, the value here is not in being able to access or transfer thousands of records, but rather in not having to access or transfer thousands of records and instead having instant graphical access only to the amount of detail needed to satisfy any one individual query (or queries).
Hope that helps,
Steve |
