[ale] Re: [ale-unemployed] Where we stand 2/8/02

[Dow Hurst]

I haven't been following this thread, but I do know that a doctor in Marietta has been faced with integrating billing into an electronic format.  This is to facilitate Medicare billing, I think.  Anyway, the companies offering him this service charge anywhere from $4000-$9000 for upgrading his current hardware and software to do the job.  The current hardware is a 486 running SCO Unix.  The current software is a ncurses type interface via ethernetted terminals throughout the office.  Old but reliable.  If his current hardware could run software that would do the job and you could offer say a $500-$2000 deal, I am sure he would jump at it.  I think Medicare won't deal with paper billing from doctor's offices anymore so this is a forced market.  Just a thought,
Dow


>>> "James P. Kinney III" <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com> 02/09/02 19:11 PM >>>
Nail struck squarely on the head, Irv.

New business start-ups need a ready to run box with stuff loaded that
they don't have to think about. If a business is new to computing, I
suspect it would be an easier sell for Linux based set-ups. And it has
to be low cost for the new business to be able to afford it.

On Sat, 2002-02-09 at 14:55, Irv Mullins wrote:
> On Friday 08 February 2002 10:33 pm, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > For the benefit of those who were unable to attend, this is a rundown of
> > the (on topic :) discussions:
> >
> > Everyone pretty much agreed that a collective effort to get consulting
> > work for all of use would be a more effective use of our individual,
> > limited resources.
> >
> > We discussed some target markets for focusing an advertising campaign
> > on. New start-up small to mid-size business and medical offices were the
> > most common targets.
> 
> This is a good and sensible approach. However, these are also the 
> same businesses that can't afford staff programmers, so appropriate packaged 
> software (or reasonably priced custom software) must be available. I think 
> that will be the biggest stumbling block to overcome. You'll need to have 
> references to people who are successfully using software X, Y and Z in 
> similar situations, if you expect to wean them from Windows.
>  
> I search the web regularly for Linux business software, but most of what 
> I've found seems to fall somewhere between pre-beta and vaporware, or is 
> priced out of the small business market. Hopefully, I am totally wrong 
> about this - if so, someone correct me.
> 
> Regards,
> Irv
> 
> 
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GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
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