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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Esteban who wrote (27337)	5/31/2002 4:05:37 PM
From: Robert Graham	Respond to of 110655

Thank you for thinking about my observations. As far as your conclusion that me method may permit me to miss some jewels of software is true. But I have too many times cleaned up the messes made by others who installed software on their PC or mainframe computer that was not properly researched. Due to this experience, I have a different perspective from most people in this business. One time several years ago, a systems administrator of a large book distributor installed a version of the OS that was not ready for prime time. The minicomputer vendor apparently was having trouble issuing an OS that can handle symmetric multiprocessing. The results were devastating. The OS appeared to work. But under certain kinds of heavy load, which came during their Christmas season, the computer would fault, or worse yet, corrupt files. Since it was not apparent to them where the problem was coming from, an important part of their Christmas business went elsewhere. Meanwhile, the vendor denied there was any problem with the OS. Every hour the system is down, the business estimated that it lost $50,000. During the peak of the Christmas season, this value increased to probably well over $100,000 per hour. This problem ended up costing them many millions of dollars in lost Christmas business, and the loss of several multimillion dollar accounts. In one week of the several weeks that I worked on the problem, I put in 112 hours at the company. The problem was solved just in time for a couple back-to-back record breaking 1.5 million dollar days in sales. The system administrator was moved to a management position of one of their warehouses. The moral of the story? Beware of what you install on your computer system. Do not trust what appears to be software from a reliable source. I suspect only people from the "front lines" of system administration may be able to understand the actual significance of this statement. And by all means, do your own research. Put in this effort BEFORE you install the software. Anti-virus software can create an illusion that leads the user to believe his system is protected, when it is not. Unfortunately the user can find out too late the truth, and end up with potentially devastating consequences for their business. Bob Graham PS: This message is intended for all of those people who read the posts in this thread, and not just for our conversation.