Just a few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to bid on how long it would take to do a conversion from legacy telnet system to the web. We sifted through what little documentation existed and looked at the sample code. We looked at the dictionaries, the files, and the general flow. We had a good idea that this was a very complex set of programs that had lasted 15 plus years without much maintenance or updates.
After coming up with our estimated hours, we asked our would be client what the competition, in this case a Microsoft SQL shop, how many hours they thought it would take to convert as well. Since we were not asking for the pricing the client gave us those hours. We thought it would take about 1000 to 2000 hours to convert this Universe application to the web. Our competition thought the number of hours was between 4000 and 6000 hours. Now that is what you call a major difference between our bids. Hopefully we will know soon whether we will be getting the business.
We are sure blessed with a wonderful database that is allows changes to the database without a DBA and allows us to program within the U2 database using the UniBasic language. We should be thanking our lucky stars that we can produce or upgrade software for pennies on the dollar compared to the other guys and gals. Just think if we had a marketing budget of 10% of Microsoft's for 2011, wow how sales would take off.
