August 2007

With offices located in idyllic English parkland in Suffolk, not far from the Dedham Vale of John Constable fame, a golf course in front and bluebell woods behind, specialist  academic book publishers Boydell and Brewer Ltd operate in an idyllic environment.

 

Formed in 1978, the company has grown continuously, including in 1989 the founding of the University of Rochester Press in New York State and it is now a global business selling both scholarly works to the academic community and thought provoking, attractively produced books for the general reader.

 

Their web site - http://www.boydell.co.uk/ is a treasure trove for anyone interested in history, literature, classical music, Spanish theatrical history and a wealth of similar material.

 

 

The whole business, on both sides of the Atlantic, is run on a suite of DataFlex and Visual DataFlex based applications, built almost entirely in-house by Boydell and Brewer co-founder Richard Barber, a medieval historian and not an IT specialist.

 

As well as running the day to day management of book publishing, Richard’s applications also provide direct typesetting via Postscript and Adobe InDesign of book notices and "blurbs", and populate the pages of their web site, all direct from the database under DataFlex control. Not bad for an application conceived in the DataFlex of nearly 20 years ago, still in use and with data all the way back to 1989 still retained on-line and accessible from the current applications!

 

With the Rochester Press development the application suite is also operational in the USA and Richard has devised a manual means of achieving two way data synchronization so that management on each side of the Atlantic can work from essentially identical data. This is in the process of being extended to near on-line synchronization, of which more in our next newsletter.

  

Richard says "When we started there was nothing on the market for our Commodore PET that would handle even basic invoicing properly. When we found we couldn’t do credit notes "because we hadn’t asked for that", I decided that we would have to do it for ourselves. DataFlex has done everything we have wanted to do and the result is something that exactly matches how we need the business to run, and which we can keep continually updated as our management needs change. We could not have achieved anything close to this using available packaged business software, let alone the single integrated and seamless to use application we have achieved, especially now with VDF"

 

Richard Barber’s long term development of this business management suite is a brilliant tribute to the capacity for DataFlex to provide for long term end-user application development and evolution meeting new needs - such as Web page generation - as they have arisen

 

Nearly 20 years on, and the same system is now being extended (N.B. not  re-written from scratch) to allow for real-time data synchronization from the UK to the US, and updated to using the Microsoft MS SQL Server database format.

 

This is also a textbook example of the benefits of bespoke development in support of unique business methods. Boydell and Brewer Ltd look to be highly successful in a niche of the global book market which is extremely competitive and dominated by some very large international companies. Richard Barber regards the system as a key facilitator of that success, operating to support the business exactly as they want it to operate rather than as dictated by standard business software.

 

The web site itself is a further example of this benefit. A very attractive site, it shows up very highly on Google lists when searching for a book title. Alison Robinson, Boydell and Brewer’s web master says "DataFlex creates all our book and book list pages directly from the database, so we refresh all our book pages and lists weekly at the press of a button".

 

There are not many development systems that can combine such longevity with the adoption of current "state of the art" facilities!

 

The above is an abridged version of the full Success Story which can be found here.

 

 

 

This Portal site has been selected from a finalist pool of 8 other initiatives from an entry of more than 80 entries from all over the world in total. Details of the competition and listing of finalists and winner may be found here

 

 

Do you need a high quality, easily user maintainable Web Site? Electos is seeing more and more interest lately, with some extensive sites coming on line - like this one highlighted here.

 

Talk to us about what can be done - 0845 270 7747.

 

 

If Richard Barber’s example has made you think that maybe you could tackle in-house development, you might like to note that on October 24th we have a one day seminar on Visual Dataflex.

 

Aimed at those who have been looking at the freely available Personal Edition of Visual Dataflex as a precursor to potential development, this seminar will provide lots of ideas to anyone thinking of building a  business management tailored to your own detailed needs.

 

The venue will be The Thistle Hotel, Luton, close to Luton airport and chosen to allow for easy access by way of low cost air travel.

 

Talk to us (0845 270 7747) or email enquiries@asckey.com if interested.

 

 

Come to Softworld and find out how "BI" can be an affordable and essential technology that will enhance the management of your business.

Is Business Intelligence a mystery to you? This web page  will introduce you to what BI is all about, and how it differs to traditional business database reporting. Or call us on 0845 270 7747 for more information and a demonstration.

 

This will be our first major industry show outside of our usual NHS world, and we particularly look forward to seeing all our friends there, and not just the NHS ones!

 

Find us at Stand AF 342