I’ve been connecting to my customers over the internet to do maintenance for years. Meanwhile, I’ve been burning rating CDs for my insurance client to distribute to their agencies. Recently, as they all got online, we made the rating software available as a download.
Yesterday, I was struck as if by a bolt of lightning. What if the ins co installed a blade thingy with virtual machine instances and hosted separate copies of the rating software for each agency? We’d have the apps and data for each in house. The bennies just started flowing:
- I could real-time update each copy, killing the prob of old software in the field.
- The agencies wouldn’t have to install copies on PCs and servers.
- Since the ins co’s in-house copy of the rating software already feeds the policy mgmt system, it would be simple to make the agency copies available, ending all re-keying of policy quotes and applications.
- The agency data would be backed up and secure.
Combined with my new report consolidation technology, I’m on a roll.
BTW, applying the Software As A Service model to a local problem acts as a force multiplier and radically improves the efficiency and growth capability of the company and its agents.
Fuck Mumbai. VFP runs circles around PHP and MySQL in terms of development and performance, particularly in cookie-cutter low traffic iterations. My God, I would no longer have to suffer the limits of one copy for everyone and could customize each. That’s huge. The needs of a multi-site agency are much different than a mom and pop shop.
Oh Lord, then the synergies of incremental development come back into play. The idea is to develop for one agency and distribute improvements to the rest.
And I can implement the whole shebang without writing one more line of code.
Then I could get consolidated real-time performance metrics.
Customer support goes from awkward to ideal.
I’ve spoken to the customer and they’re over the moon.
Agency M&As would become a breeze to facilitate.
The ins co, having lavishly invested in a new facility and the best computers, can leverage the installation by taking on custom development for non-insurance clients. And I can admin the whole fucking thing from the comfort of my office, wearing nothing but a diaper, should I so choose.
Of course, certain badly run competitors and former customers could be easily merged in place.
I need to prepare something to show the pres. and his board.
16:30: Open Office has a free Powerpoint clone called Impress. I exported my presentation as a pdf and emailed it.
@ Fec
Good for you ! Start buying your solar panels and water testing kits now ! If you’re in the market for a new car, I got a good link for that two
Inside the Meltdown by PBS is historical – but the history is still being written.
The story of the PBS piece I just watched doesn’t sound any different than the cataloging you’ve been doing here. The Great Unwind continues to unfurl. Some say it took 200 years for the Roman Empire to fall, so you got time ?
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Re: Epiphany just recognize you point of failure has been moved to the net. Speaking of which:
Good Luck on your implementation !!!
Thanks. Good DKOS snag. I should go there more often.
The bad press about Mumbai, plus the natural vagaries of its geographic dislocation and the instability of the region portend international internet problems.
Int’l actors loosing DoS and phishing attacks speak for local internet firewalls. As the tech I describe does not make use of domain names or published URLs, so long as the state-wide internet framework remains viable, we’re in business.
@ Fec
As a habit I only read that author of DKos. The author, Neal, I started reading as Sacred Cow Tipper on theioldrum.com and followed when he established strandedwind.org. His day job for a decade has been a Cisco geek.
A decade ago when I set a goal of getting into the Cisco world I signed up for a Cisco Internet Routing class. Long story, short it ended up a Cisco-based Internet Routing class. Significant difference. I took the CCNA once and failed. At $100 dollar a pop and other things in my life I changed my goals.
I can set up and admin a peer to peer LAN. Beyond that, I call an expert. Network protocols are too arcane for me. The guy setting up all this works for the local school system and is trained to within an inch of his life.