emc@unicus.UUCP (Eric M. Carroll) (05/04/87)
I need to find out about application software available for Unix. As per usual unix standards, I don't have a common machine that everyone sells binaries for (they ain't Suns or ATs). I want to set up some office sorts of things (databases, order trackers, etc). This must have been done before, and I think reinventing it all would be a waste of intelligent programmers ( 1/2 :-), flames to /dev/null). So, given some Generic Thing That Has Surely Been Done Before, how do I find out in this amorphous world called unix who has done it and how much it costs? Is there some compendium of software vendors for Orphan Machines? Will it cost me my first child to purchase sources? Does anyone even do this sort of thing under unix? Would an IBMish thing with Unix provide an acceptable compromise (ie it is unix, thus can maybe network coherently, cheap per hardware unit and binaries available)? I would like to avoid the obvious solution of either buying Suns (for binary solutions) or PCs (for MSDOS solutions). We are running System Vr2v2, with an upgrade to V.3 and RFS in the works. We need software to do accounting (payable, receivable) do order taking and tracking, manage and track purchase orders and take and track customer orders. As we are a Unix shop, I would like to go with what we know, and do it with Unix. I suspect a competent DBMS could handle nearly all of this. Comments from anyone who has experience with producing a semi-paperless office under Unix would be appreciated If there is a sufficient response, I will summarize to the net, as I suspect this is of common interest. -- Eric Carroll Unicus Corporation, Toronto Ont. Eric.M.Carroll@Unicus.COM (Internet) {seismo!mnetor, utzoo!utgpu!utcsri}!unicus!Eric.M.Carroll (dumb UUCP) mnetor!unicus!Eric.M.Carroll@seismo.css.GOV (dumb ARPA)