bruce@heather.pooh.com (Bruce Robertson) (05/17/91)
Hundred Acre
Company Information
May, 1991
Hundred Acre is a consulting firm based in Reno, Nevada that provides
software support and development services to organizations of all
sizes. We specialize in UNIX, DOS and OS/2, Free Software Foundation
(GNU) software, embedded systems, and device interfacing. Hundred
Acre has a reputation for quick turnaround time, responsive technical
support, and excellent problem solving ability.
Support Services
----------------
Our support organization was set up to distribute and provide
maintenance and support of ``public'' software.
The term ``public'' means ``publicly available''. It refers to
software that is available to the public in source form, typically
with no usage restrictions other than prohibiting selling as a
commercial product. We use the term ``public'' rather than ``public
domain'' because most of the software we support is actually
copyrighted by the author and is therefore not in the public domain.
The authors have decided to retain their copyrights, but allow their
software to be freely distributed.
The problem with using such software is there is no support---you can
readily obtain public software, but unlike commercial software, when a
problem arises there is no phone number you can call for help. The
source code is, of course, available to you, but unless you have the
staff available to maintain the software, you probably don't want to
take the risk of using it. This is unfortunate, because quite often
public software packages are of equal or higher quality than
commercial equivalents.
Hundred Acre solves this problem by providing support for the best of
the public software packages. When you sign a support contract with
us, you no longer need to worry about the risk of using public
software. We provide support of higher quality than most commercial
software vendors, and with much faster response time. For example, we
guarantee four hour response time to questions and problem reports at
all support levels above the basic update subscription, and we even
provide free on-site support. Also, you never pay for a long distance
phone call. Once you've signed a support contract, we supply you with
an 800 number to use. When you call, you talk to the person who
actually works on the software you are using, not a ``sales
engineer''. You can use FAX, CompuServe, UUCP and Internet Email to
reach us as well, and we provide dialup access to our computers
without charging for connect time.
We are continually evaluating new public software packages, and adding
to our support list the ones that meet our standards of quality and
functionality. We automatically notify you whenever we add new
packages to our list, or release a new version of a current package.
Here are answers to a few questions commonly asked about our support
services.
``Why should I sign up for this service?''
You have the benefits of a whole group of experts, for a fraction of
the cost of hiring a single programmer. It is even better than having
your own group, because you benefit from fixes to bugs discovered by
our entire client base. You can rest easy knowing that your
development tools and utilities are being maintained, leaving you to
concentrate on developing your own products.
When you run into a problem, just call us. If it's a problem we have
a fix for, we get the fix to you within four hours via modem, or by
overnight mail if you prefer. If it's a new problem, we'll start
working on it immediately, and give you progress reports as work
progresses.
``Why should I NOT use this service?''
If you already have in-house staff with the time and resources to
maintain public software, you probably don't need our services. Many
copmanies have employees who do nothing but find new public software
on various networks and bulletin boards, try it out, and install it if
it works. Keep in mind, however, that this is a very expensive way to
utilize the people at your organization.
``What about GNU software?''
Software from the Free Software Foundation (also known as GNU
software) is, of course, public software. In fact, the purpose of the
Free Software Foundation is to ensure that software is freely
available to anyone who wants it. GNU software is distributed with a
special copyright designed to encourage the free sharing of source
code. We use GNU compilers and tools in-house daily, and have
developed expertise in maintenance and porting to new platforms. We
donate a percentage of all proceeds from FSF releases and support to
the Free Software Foundation.
``What platforms do you support?''
As of this writing, we support the following platforms:
Hardware Operating System
----------------------------------------
Sun 3 SunOs 4.0
Sun 4 SunOs 4.0
Sun Sparcstation SunOS 4.0
386 PC/AT Interactive UNIX 2.2
DEC VAX Ultrix 4.1
DG Aviion DG/UX 4.32
We are always adding new platforms; please call to see if we currently
support your platform. We also accept suggestions for new platforms
to support.
``How are you different from other support companies?''
There are a few other companies that provide similar support services.
We feel that we have signficant advantages over the other
organizations:
Wide selection.
Some support groups only provide support for GNU software, or software
that is licensed under the GNU General Public License. We feel that
this is somewhat limiting, because there is a deal of quality software
available that is not associated with GNU. In addition to GNU
software, we support any public packages that meet our exacting
standards of quality.
Low cost.
Our support activities are oriented toward small and medium sized
companies. Other support groups cater to larger companies, and have
correspondingly larger rates.
Support for DOS.
We don't restrict ourselves to UNIX support. We also support many
public packages under DOS and OS/2, including 32-bit development
tools.
Development Services
--------------------
In addition to our support services, we provide general software
development and system design services. Our group has experience in
many areas:
The UNIX Operating System.
We have extensive experience in all aspects of UNIX, including
applications, networking, device drivers, the X Window System, and
porting UNIX to new platforms. We're familiar with all the popular
varieties of UNIX, including System V, Berkeley, and Mach.
DOS and OS/2 Operating Systems.
Hundred Acre frequently contracts to develop DOS and OS/2
applications. We use C and C++ to quickly develop your custom
applications, or to modify and improve existing code. We're
experienced with all areas of DOS and OS/2, including TSR's, Microsoft
Windows applications, and 32-bit DOS extenders.
SCSI Interface.
Many of our recent projects have involved the Small Computer System
Interface, or SCSI. We are particularly proud of our portable SCSI-2
package, providing a correct initiator and target implementation.
This package has been used to implement UNIX device drivers, and to
provide embedded systems with a SCSI implementation.
Embedded Systems.
One of our specialties is real-time, multitasking embedded systems.
Recent projects include analog data acquisition and redundant disk
arrays.
Key Personnel at Hundred Acre
-----------------------------
Bruce Robertson, Consultant and founder, has been programming
computers professionally since 1979. He has extensive experience
working with UNIX internals and device drivers, developing DOS
applications and tools, and designing real-time embedded systems. He
was the principal programmer responsible for UNIX at Sage Computer
Technology, and then at Stride Micro. At Tektronix, he did filesystem
work for their UNIX operating system.
David Wolfskill, Consultant, has been involved with computers
for over 15 years. He is highly experienced at installation
procedures for software packages, and has explored various aspects of
system security. He has been maintaining and collecting public
software for the past several years on 680x0 based platforms.
Further Information
-------------------
Hundred Acre is always seeking new contracts. If you would like to
find out more, contact:
Hundred Acre
1280 Terminal Way, Suite 26
Reno NV 89502-3243
Phone: (702) 329-9333
FAX: (702) 324-5354
Email: info@pooh.com
Compuserve: 76130,3034
--
Bruce Robertson bruce@pooh.com Phone: (702) 329-9333
Hundred Acre 1280 Terminal Way, Suite 26 Reno, NV 89502-3243