Microsoft Great Plains: Offshore Customization & Development – overview for consultantWritten by Andrew Karasev
When you visit department stores and see that majority of apparels are produced in other countries, not US – you probably do not worry about this fact. About 10 years ago, when Clinton’s high tech era was at inception – we saw signs of high tech professionals inflow in USA from overseas. Nowadays trend is reversed – instead of importing high tech people, we are at beginning of outsourcing to them in their overseas countries programming workload. In this small article we’ll concentrate on Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains customization specifics: Great Plains Dexterity (IDE and programming language), SQL programming with XML in/out bound, VBA/Modifier/Continuum, Crystal Reports, Web publishing/eCommerce •Closed/Protected technology. Great Plains Dexterity serious development requires months of formal training and it also requires access to so-called source code (DYNAMICS.DIC with scripts in it – normally scripts are stripped). This fact imposes restrictions on offshore facility selection. This facility should be located in country, where Great Plains Software had former development force. To give you more clue – these are Australia and Philippines. If you are considering India – we do not know if anyone there has access to source code, at least officially they do not have access, because source code partner program was closed many years ago. •Coded table names: RM00101, SOP30200 – to give you example. The reason was – Dexterity design was based on multi-database-platform principle. From development standpoint – it means that developer should have data fixing experience – serving real clients either remotely to US or in their local countries
| | Tips for starting a hosting companyWritten by Ron Swerdfiger
There are a couple of key things to look at when starting a hosting company. Basically there are four major factors to look at provided you have servers, and technical abilities. 1. Site design is first thing a prospective customer sees!! I have seen some horrible designs for hosting companies. If you think putting some text, links and a logo on a page is enough, you will likely fail before you even realize. You will also notice a lot of companies have a generic template that can be found online at templetemonster or any other temple site. Avoid these. It is very hard to develop a company image when you look like 134,000 other hosting companies. I suggest put a bit of effort and creativity into a well designed "professional" looking home page for your company. The bottom line is a new customer will not even consider you as their host if they feel you are an armature no matter how great or cheap your packages are. 2. Develop your website as a total package to it's clients. Don't just present your hosting packages and leave it at that. Offer tutorials, articles, support forums etc. These additional services not only provide additional content for you clients, but if developed correctly will bring additional traffic to your site which will potentially lead to more sales. 3. You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines. You could have greatest hosting plan in entire world, but if no one knows about it, then it’s useless. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also a countless number of companies out there who offer SEO services. Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first
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