Let me give you an example. Do you remember growing up and going to school? There was always one kid who had nice clothes, got good grades, was liked by all teachers, was really good in all of sports he or she participated in, yadda yadda. It seems that no matter what that kid did or said it kind of upset you, or it got under your skin a bit. Am I right or am I right? Sure, looking back your view of that person may seem unfair, but at time it seemed to be justified.

Well, allow me to let you in on a well-kept secret. Many Europeans see US in same light. There’s a “We generally respect you, but get over it,” attitude that many Europeans have towards US.

The US towers over Europe in several areas. Here are just a few examples: Europe United States of America # of countries251 Population457 million297 million Total Area3,976,372 km9,631,923 km GDP per Capita$ 26,900$ 40,100 Industrial Production Growth Rate2.4%4.4% Annual Patents62,000107,000 2004 Olympic Games5th place (Germany)1st place Sole Remaining Superpower?noyes

Now, after a brief look those numbers, you can easily see why others countries regard US with an “enough already!” attitude.

I witnessed a personal example of this a couple of years back before watching a tape of 2002-2003 Fiesta Bowl game with another American, an Australian, and a friend from Britain. Prior to engaging in time-tested male bonding ritual of sitting in front of a television yelling “Get him! Get him!” we were carrying on type of conversation guys engage in before game time.

According to Dave Airey, VP of Sales and Marketing at OTI, “We started looking for a way to move our application to a GUI “look and feel,” but after two years of investigation it became obvious that it was not a practical goal. As an alternative we investigated upgrading our legacy application to a new product.”

OTI’s requirements for a new system revolved around their customers. After many years of custom changes, legacy system was geared to client requirements.

Airey noted, “OTI’s initial search took us to major ERP players, but none had features we required to support our loyal customers.”

Finding an ERP System with Strong Functionality: The search for a new ERP system ended when OTI was introduced to PRONTO North America (www.PRONTOerp.com). According to Airey, “We were introduced to Pronto and were immediately impressed with rich functionality. One important feature was that Pronto is fully integrated. We had engineered our legacy system to be fully integrated so this was of major importance.”