Taxi Driver Online

ooo look it's the self-appointed forum daddies doing their level best to sidetrack and kill a debate. From taxiforum to TTF to TTF2 to here. Nothing changes I see; how nieve of me to think it would be any different. I'll hang up my rose-tinted glasses.




Now, I reiterate:

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Next time you wave, use all your fingers.

It would appear that some people have been let down in the past, and that's not on, especially if it has cost them money.

But please could we not get into all that again on here.

I'm reliably informed that this was discussed to death, on Mick and Nigel's forum.

I don't suppose it could be carried on there please?

Alex

We're human. In fact, all suppliers are human. We will make mistakes, and sometimes we won't meet expectations. It's part of business life. Name one supplier who has never let anyone down.

Please bear in mind here that most of what Spanners bangs on about is a dispute between suppliers. Richard has let us down, and we've let Richard down. But he won't let it lie. What cracks me up is that Richard considers internet forums to be a waste of time; I've heard him say those words myself, and it's self-evident in that Spanners (and even Mike Scott) has to speak on his behalf.

I am taking this all a bit personally, because what he's effectively doing is tainting every post I make with "You work for a bunch of c*nts". Now I could have a lot of fun doing that to him, but I won't. It's not worth my time.

Maybe I've made yet another mistake devoting some of my precious spare time to come onto taxi-forums and give advice.

And yes Andy, I'd still like to know whether the original post makes you better informed and whether you have any comment on it.

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Next time you wave, use all your fingers.

Jason,
I dont quite know what it is about you but you seem to pick on persanalities instead of real issues

you are hard selling on here the forum is not for that, as for ruining your debate you seam to pick on me how is it my fault?

You are not devoting time to help anyone but flogging kit and avoiding real issues and telling lies.

there are people that has paid for Diplomat Kit, that has not got thier money back, when this is pointed out you get abusive.

Now Jason dont keep telling us all is well when it is not, No one is blaming you on the forums or attacking you personaly, I accept the situation at diplomat is not your fault, but you are acting as thier spokesman.

DONT KEEP HARBOURING ON THE HARD SELL

you realy are abusing the forum.

Spanners

So Jason, what's the best system out there, others than yours of course?

And when do you think I will be able to get rid of my Auriga brick?

So Jason, what you are saying is that you get an under-developed product more cheaply and more quickly, but then you have to pay fairly significant sums on an ongoing basis to get the thing working optimally?

So basically you have a choice between waiting a long time for the 'full monty' or getting a sub-optimal product which will be optimised and paid for over time???

Dusty

Yes Jason, I take your point. Personally, I do understand why the initial capital costs of buying the equipment and software do not cover all your costs in producing it.

I presume, it is down to market size.

I bought Sage Line 50 for around a £1,000.

They said "Do you want support? Its another £450 a year."

I said, "Will it go wrong then?"

They said "Of course not"

So I said "Then I do not need your support, thank you".

And so it has transipred, that I have not needed their support. It just works.

So, what are my presumptions? I presume, that Sage sell in such volume that the initial cost price covers their development costs (to date).

Do I want upgraded versions of sage? Not really, if the one I have now works, then why do I need an upgrade? I am not fashion concious.

I would happily still be working with DOS. Faster PCs dont do anything for me. I still have never met any PC that works slower than I can type. I'm just not in a hurry. Do I need all the fancy stuff? Nope, probably not, but if it's there I might buy it when I eventually do need a new computer or software. It's called impulse buying.

Now, with impulse buying I can spend a grand or two and if it's not what I wanted, too bad. However, when it comes to spending say £25,000, and then having ongoing support costs that come to far more than that figure, I am now into a heavy "Risk" factor. I can no longer impulse buy, as I cannot afford to get it wrong.

Worse still, If I am spending someone else's money (and that someone else happens to be my best mates, and my best mates are not, and have never, been into computers), as my process of convincing them is all the more difficult.

So, what can I do? Well, the obvious answer is to get into it incrementally. But, there seems to be no actual benefit in that. A single user station would have to go on the control desk, which means I cannot actually benefit from it myself to do the invoicing, wages, etc etc..., so I need at least a two station system, one on the control desk, and one in my office as I do all the other admin. Well, as soon as you get to two users, you might as well put a server in and add another desk for the second telephonist as the system seems pointless without it. And, oh yes, the boss would like one on his desk too so that he can monitor things, and while we are at it....... etc etc etc....

Soon, we are up to spending a lot of money. Now, I can so far, justify the capital costs............. But then, when I add ongoing costs of support, the arithmetic veers away from my control.

We buy a PMR radio for £250. When the warranty runs out, if we need it fixed we pay a guy to do it. No ongoing support cost like there is with a datahead. If he says it will cost us £50 to repair the radio and we've had it a while, we simply bin it, and buy another one.

Now look at your support costs on a datahead. If we said a datahead had a 5 year lifespan, it would be cheaper to buy new ones than to pay the support costs. Thus, we must presume, that dataheads dont last very long. Another cost to factor in? Well, no actually, as we never think like that in real life. We never, for example, factor in the costs of buying new PMR radios, yet, this year to date, my Sage tells me we have spent £2,600 on PMR sets. The point is, if we need one, we simply phone up and order one. Now, if every PMR set we ordered had an ongoing support cost attached to it, the factors of consideration are very different.

I can spend money that we have in the bank, what I cannot do without serious consideration, is spend money that we dont yet have, by commiting us to ongoing monthly costs way into the future. Can you not see, that thats an altogether different baby.

If the sale price of your software does not cover the real cost, then put the price up so it does. Then we all know where we stand.

Jason, please do not think I am having a go at you. I'm not. You are preaching to the already converted here. I already know that Diplomat support is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to talking to someone who actually knows what they are talking about. The Auriga girls, and some other support services simply seem to be "message takers" who know the time, but little else.

What I am trying to put over here, is the view-point from a small business that is very much on the border line so far as needing or wanting to go computerised. We are set in our own little world, where the pen and a bit of paper takes a lot of beating, but are at that time, when there are too many bits of paper, and we cannot store it all in our heads anymore. But, can I convince everyone else of that fact?

Therein lies the problem.

I know that if we computerise, we will have no end of problems initially. So I also know we need support.

So, give me a clue, for a four desk system with one set in continuous use 24/7 and the other three only intermittantly, how many times a week do you reckon we will ring you in the first six months?

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Data heads last 5 years ohohahahahhohoehhehheh, Andy when thier company went bust the directors said in the report that thier stock of data heads were of no commercial value.

Since then Stewart has been praising the value of voice going right back to square one.

Diplomat Data units, is what thier company was about ,someone develop the software. diplomat do the data heads, except they could not deliver people were put off and put off.

if you like diplomat navigator its not done by them jeeves no, you might think they know what they are talking about, in fact they dont..........

all diplomat have has been conned out of somebody else..............

wharfie

Wharfie, I appreciate your problem with Diplomat, but to suggest Jason doesn't know what he is talking about is a bit disingenious don't you think?

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

no.

I see that the previous post was anon !!!!

I just can't work out who posted it !!!!

Good post by Andy.

Wharfie, I and all of us know your problems with Diplomat.

And I can appreciate your grievance and justification in wanting to make us aware of it.

However can you let this thread continue without repeating those points. That way we might actually all learn something from Jason with a toy throwing spat!

Thanks mate.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry