Doug Werth wrote:

> Many companies are throwing a web based solution together hastily just to
> provide a presence. It reminds me of an EDI implementation I was involved
> with in a former life where the electronic orders were manually retrieved
> from the EDI network provider, manually printed and sent over to data entry
> for keying. Why? Because the customer demanded that an EDI interface be
> provided if we wanted their business.

That is all too common with EDI.  Larger companies demand that their suppliers
be "EDI-capable" and there are plenty of EDI PC packages that will allow you to
receive and translate an EDI transaction and then print something out for order
entry.

I was getting a tour of a prospective employer's computer room once and I saw a
report printing out on a printer.  The person who was showing me around
confessed that the report was actually hand-typed in a word-processor and then
printed because someone (parent company perhaps?) demanded that the report be
"computer-generated."  It looked like it was and I suppose that's all that
counts.  I didn't stick around after the interview.
--

        Tom Hula
        Victor S. Barnes Company
        616.361.7351  x173