WebCatalog Growth

This WebDNA talk-list message is from

2000

It keeps the original formatting. numero = 26560
interpreted = N
texte = I few minor comments on some topics mentioned in an earlier post:>smaller, unknown product, will support exist for it in say 3 to 5 years? Is>their a large enough development force out there to hire people into the>development department?)WebCatalog has been around, as a turnkey package that is actively developed, for 5 years. That's a long time. Longer than most of its competitors, and longer than other higher profile packages that have come and gone. It has a solid customer base, which is an important part of longevity.Obviously another key component of longevity is profitability. We want to grow our business, we want to make the product more successful than it is currently. We certainly don't want to step on anyone's toes in the process, but getting bigger involves selling all you can in terms of products and services. This will do nothing but help all of you that bid on projects against other technologies that people have heard more about. Please don't twist this statement to mean something that it doesn't. You can't have a company get bigger and more supportive, and at the same time restrict the key assets that it can use to make money. >So normally on the large scale client site Webcatalog has not come out well,>and for our own smaller clients, administration is becoming a big issue.>People would like us to develop the back-end part of their sites, but>still allow them freedom to FTP files, change images, etc any time of day.>So the whole development server ----> production server idea does not work>well, when they can go to a hosting/development company that will do what>they want in say PHP3/mySQl and still allow them full FTP access, etc. In>this case we have chosen to go with MGI (for now on the MacOS, but in the>future when released, Apache/Linux like our main servers, where people>currently are having to deal with PHP3/Perl/etc. for even simple things,>which could be taken care of by MGI tags like banner rotation, e-mail forms,>etc... stuff that right now at times we have to edit perl scripts to>configure them for a certain task, where tags in Webcatalog or MGI are great>at handling, but with the lack of major support in a multi-client setup,>Webcatalog just is not the tool for us anymore... and hey in 2 to 3 years>MGI may not be either.We integrate whenever possible with other technologies. Via ODBC, text file transfer of shopping cart information to a fulfillment system, or data integration directly from an outside source. A prime example of this is the way we have tried to make integration to back end payment processing systems simple and straightforward - certainly much easier than the method suggested by many processors themselves.Thanks.John.--------------------------------- John A. Hill Smith Micro Software Internet Solutions DivisioneCommerce / Consulting / Hosting http://www.smithmicro.com(formerly Pacific Coast Software)-------------------------------------------------------------Brought to you by CommuniGate Pro - The Buzz Word Compliant Messaging Server.To end your Mail problems go to .This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list .To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:

WebCatalog Growth (John Hill 2000)

I few minor comments on some topics mentioned in an earlier post:>smaller, unknown product, will support exist for it in say 3 to 5 years? Is>their a large enough development force out there to hire people into the>development department?)WebCatalog has been around, as a turnkey package that is actively developed, for 5 years. That's a long time. Longer than most of its competitors, and longer than other higher profile packages that have come and gone. It has a solid customer base, which is an important part of longevity.Obviously another key component of longevity is profitability. We want to grow our business, we want to make the product more successful than it is currently. We certainly don't want to step on anyone's toes in the process, but getting bigger involves selling all you can in terms of products and services. This will do nothing but help all of you that bid on projects against other technologies that people have heard more about. Please don't twist this statement to mean something that it doesn't. You can't have a company get bigger and more supportive, and at the same time restrict the key assets that it can use to make money. >So normally on the large scale client site Webcatalog has not come out well,>and for our own smaller clients, administration is becoming a big issue.>People would like us to develop the back-end part of their sites, but>still allow them freedom to FTP files, change images, etc any time of day.>So the whole development server ----> production server idea does not work>well, when they can go to a hosting/development company that will do what>they want in say PHP3/mySQl and still allow them full FTP access, etc. In>this case we have chosen to go with MGI (for now on the MacOS, but in the>future when released, Apache/Linux like our main servers, where people>currently are having to deal with PHP3/Perl/etc. for even simple things,>which could be taken care of by MGI tags like banner rotation, e-mail forms,>etc... stuff that right now at times we have to edit perl scripts to>configure them for a certain task, where tags in Webcatalog or MGI are great>at handling, but with the lack of major support in a multi-client setup,>Webcatalog just is not the tool for us anymore... and hey in 2 to 3 years>MGI may not be either.We integrate whenever possible with other technologies. Via ODBC, text file transfer of shopping cart information to a fulfillment system, or data integration directly from an outside source. A prime example of this is the way we have tried to make integration to back end payment processing systems simple and straightforward - certainly much easier than the method suggested by many processors themselves.Thanks.John.--------------------------------- John A. Hill Smith Micro Software Internet Solutions DivisioneCommerce / Consulting / Hosting http://www.smithmicro.com(formerly Pacific Coast Software)-------------------------------------------------------------Brought to you by CommuniGate Pro - The Buzz Word Compliant Messaging Server.To end your Mail problems go to .This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list .To unsubscribe, E-mail to: To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to John Hill

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WebCatalog Growth

2000

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