A few remaining long-time DDMS dealers face familiar struggles every day with hardware that was all the rage 30 years ago: dumb terminals, serial printers, and the good old Specialix I/O pads to connect them to your server.
If this is you, the time for planning is now. New server and motherboard designs are incompatible with the Specialix pads currently in use.
Don’t Be Caught Without a Plan:
Phase Out Obsolete Serial Hardware
When hardware or server failure occurs, it has become virtually impossible to restore this serial infrastructure.
Plan now to phase out dumb terminals and serial printers — before you need a replacement or upgrade server.
Weigh Your Options. It’s Easier Than You’d Think.
I’m here to help you weigh your options and develop a simple, reasonable plan.
Wherever dumb terminals used to be, a majority of dealers have migrated in phases to inexpensive PCs. Take advantage of graphical software for Order Entry, Point of Sale, Purchasing, Warehouse Delivery Manifests, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger or Executive Dashboard, Contract Furniture Projects, and Machine Sales and Service.
Dealers like you have also realized how easy it is to plug their printers into parallel ports on a network print server, a small economical device on your network hub. Some of these printers plug right into PCs, to share across the network as needed.
The old hardware works as always, for now.
But eventually, hardware fails.
You might wonder, why would we recommend phasing out serial technology now?
Our support staff gets what we call “down calls” every week or so, where our oldest and most loyal dealers find that their old machines have finally bitten the dust. It may have nothing to do with the serial hardware; it may just be an old server’s hard drive, fan, or power supply. It may be a lightning strike out of the blue.
The march of technology, however,
makes some systems harder to replace.
To replace a down DDMS system, we look to what’s available to us at the moment, on the shelf or on the market.
Unfortunately, server manufacturers no longer design boards with the PCI slots required to plug Specialix (expandable serial communications) pads that a few remaining DDMS servers use to run old devices such as dumb terminals and serial printers.
Software manufacturers have widely phased out support for this kind of serial connectivity and have replaced it with PC based connectivity in a Windows environment.
Thanks to our staff’s extensive experience and low turnover, DDMS has always stretched support for legacy software and hardware far beyond industry norms. However, dwindling expertise and industry support for serial connectivity thwarts such efforts. Eventually, ECi must suspend its attempts to keep dying serial technology alive.
Our customers’ continued investments must be allocated carefully toward DDMS enhancements to keep up with market pressure and security standards. Every software update brings you new functionality for Web commerce, back-office efficiencies, new Private Supply Network services, SQL/.NET reporting and business intelligence, and mobile technology. We want you to be able to take advantage of these enhancements.
Plan to Take Advantage of Newer Technology.
Consider areas where you can recover an investment in contemporary PC connectivity:
Tax incentives.
Phase In Graphical Training.
Multitask to Increase Productivity.
Maximize Margins with Customer Price Plans.
Prevent Writeoffs with Graphical G/L Drill Downs.
Go Green and Paperless.
These are just examples. If you are still using serial technology, please call on me to explore your options and develop a simple, reasonable plan.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin McKeen
Senior Account Administrator, DDMS
ECi
Software Solutions
866-374-3221, x23235
kmckeen@ecisolutions.com
