Doug Steele
dbdoug at gmail.com
Thu Jul 8 22:07:33 CDT 2010
I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but one of my clients is a Walmart supplier, and the information he can retrieve from the WM website is absolutely staggering - sales and returns by store, date and UPC code available within 24 hours (it's in Access 97 format, by the way!). I modified his order processing database to import and analyze the WM sales information daily. Walmart uses this as a club over the heads of their suppliers - if the supplier doesn't analyze the data and provide feedback to the individual stores (like, "I see you are nearly out of item XX and you're selling yy per day, shall I ship another pallet tomorrow?"), WM will drop them. Doug On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote: > Most of the POS web stuff I work with is all proprietary applications. You > would never see any of it unless you work in the particular company... most > of it is web based or cytrix based and all connected via VPNs. > > For example, just check out your Wal-Mart casher... The app on her station > can be changed every night and every thing sold or brought back, is > calibrated in virtually real time. Sales from all over the world stream in > to some central office, in the US. (I can not remember where). This is one > of IBM's big contracts but I have been brought in, from time to time, to > assist with server installs and district wide roll-outs. > > There is and always will be a place for desktop apps but their importance, > especially among the giants of industry who want centralized control, the > desktop is no longer used other than as a platform from which to support > their web or web interface apps. > > That is the way I see everything going but I could be wrong. > > Jim > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > >