What I didn't mention in my original message was that the initial part
of the SAP implementation was considered ontime and on budget. The
plant that was using it was consistently profitable, whereas the others
(on the 'mainframe') were generally unprofitable. Unfortunately,
rolling out SAP to the other plants was problematic. The plant
management was skeptical (regardless of the profitable one), corporate
management was not willing to force them to convert. The result? A
suddenly long implementation schedule which caused a significant
increase in the amount of money being spent. Money that they already
couldn't afford.
This (partly) and the economic climate caused them to declare bankruptcy
last February (2009), they came out late last year. The new owner is
running a foundry system that runs on System i. So there was a mad rush
to get a System i in house and learn how to use it, with a decimated and
over taxed work force no less. The kicker to this, the application on
System i uses 5250 screens, *not* any new GUI or web technology. So they
went from mainframe tried-and-true 3270 technology to a dalliance with
Peoplesoft and SAP, back to green screen!
On 06/30/2010 09:49 PM, Tom Huegel wrote:
My 2 cents....Two previous employers dropped the mainframe for SAP one
on HP UNIX the other laughably on WINDOZE servers.
The HP conversion was budgeted at $10 mil .. a few years and $50 mil
later the company went bankrupt. Company 2 managed a sucessful
conversion but now they spend all of their time adding hardware and
rebooting WINDOZE. There has been no savings or increase in productivity.
--
Rich Smrcina
Phone: 414-491-6001
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richsmrcina
Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org
WAVV 2011 - April 15-19, 2011 Colorado Springs, CO
