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Software Focus: Page 5 of 7

Oracle Financials was our first choice but the cost of acquiring an Oracle database, as mentioned earlier, forced us to reconsider. We looked at offerings from PeopleSoft and SAP as well, but again, cost became a factor. Great Plains offered an affordable solution, and though it meant an additional database to support, we felt the TCO of such a solution outweighed the requirement for a departmental SQL Server installation.

Financial Database: Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Windows 2000 Server, Compaq DL580

• Primary decision factors: required by general ledger software, future application support

You can't run most Microsoft products without SQL Server 2000, and given that our general ledger choice required SQL Server 7.0 or 2000, we chose the latter. We also felt that the availability of a departmental-level SQL Server was typical in the enterprise and would offer us some flexibility in decisions regarding future application deployments.

Although DB2 is widely supported, many applications support only SQL Server. While we don't necessarily like it, it's a fact that all enterprises, including NWC Inc., must deal with, and having a SQL Server installation provides us the flexibility to choose such products in the future if they suit our needs.

If you've been following our NWC Inc. blog, you know we've had problems with just about every application we've installed. In fact, we've decided integration should be a four-letter word.