posted 03 October 2000 05:29 AM               

Back on June 16th, 2000 I was contacted by Kamal Ahmed of Foliage Software, (www.foliage.com). He ask me a few questions about ZeroRejects and my company. As I recall, at that time Foliage wasn't offering any kind of SPC solutions to go with their products. Based on my logs, it looks like a Fortune 25 company was talking to Foliage about SPC and their products. You know, some things just correlate without using a Correlation Coefficient chart. He downloaded my software, and I answered his questions. He responded with a thanks, and that was that. The neither Fortune 25 company nor Foliage have ever returned to my site. All the other Fortune 25 companies have. Can we say 'RED FLAG??'

I was having a problem with VisualBasic5 because some software I installed or an ActiveX component from the Internet installed part of some controls. Enough to work, but not enough to develop software and create an installation. I went up to a VB newsgroup, posted my problem, and no one could help. I figured out the problem and how to fix it and posted a message there for all. I thought this was the professional thing to do.

Yesterday I get an email from someone with the same problem I was having. Here it is and note the email address ·

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Dear Sir,

I read your recent Deja News thread titled "COMDLG32.OCX could not be loaded". Thank you for posting your description and solution to the
problem. I am a developer in Massachusetts and I've found I have the same problem. I've attempted to do the fix you describe in your most recent post to the thread, but I'm unable to determine which is the .cab file containing comdlg32.inf. (I also don't know how I would extract comdlg32.inf if I did find the .cab file.) Which file is it, and how can I extract comdlg32.inf?

Thank you,

Rob Murnick

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So I went to their WEB site to see what they were up to, and low and behold, they now have a 'Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Group'. Can we say ANOTHER RED FLAG??

Well, I responded to the email and CC: Kamal Ahmed as follows ·

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Rob;

You guys are now my competition apparently. Kamal Ahmed contacted me sometime back. I can't help you.

> I am a developer in Massachusetts ...
Then you shouldn't have a problem figuring it out. I already gave you what's wrong and how to fix it.

Sorry
Jim Winings

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Now if they mess up their system, there is a potential that their install program could mess up all their customers' computers. Just a few months ago they were not writing 'Quality Control Software' and now they are experts?? And I know for it says so on their WEB site it's under 'Services : Quality Assurance'.

The moral of the story, be sure to check out who is writing the software and not who is running the operations. Let's face it, since I sign all my posts with 'www.sixsigmaspc.com', I have to wonder why Rob baby didn't realize we were competitors. Hummmm!!!!!!!!!!! I of course have all the evidence to back this up. The email trace, etc.

A few months ago, when one did a search with google.com for 'six sigma', I was near the top of the list. Then I got a visit from two of my competitors. This is fine, and is all part of doing business on the WEB. They researched my page, changed their pages and then resubmitted their pages to the search engines. Now I'm near the bottom, and on yahoo.com, only my links page shows up. Like I said, This is fine, and is all part of doing business on the WEB. Now I need to go back and do the same.

I researched the way search engines work with my 'free Animated GIFs page, (http://jwinings.virtualave.net/). This page only shows up if you do a search for 'Free Animated GIF'. The result of that was my domain name and all my HTML files are 'six_sigma_spc_xxx.html where xxx is the name of the page. Low and be hold, my competitors at Qualitran now have their pages and directories and files laid out with '_' characters too. I don't believe their pages were not like this a short time ago. But once again, this is fine, and is all part of doing business on the WEB.

InfinityQS on the other hand apparently hasn't figured it out yet, so they bought a new domain name 'spc-statistical-process-control.com' that is nothing more than a single page that takes you to their WEB site. This is actually a 'Bozo No-No' and they could get banned from the search engines if caught. Of course the search engines can't afford to have whiners complaining to them, especially from their competition, so if I complain, I will get banned as well. When you do a search on yahoo.com for 'statistical process control' you will see it.

I read an article, I believe it was in Quality Magazine, and it said that the Quality Control Software market was very cutthroat. Well, let me tell you, that is a gross understatement. Which leads me to my next topic, trade publications.

As I'm sure a lot of you know, be aware of what you read in them, (trade publications). My ex-Father-In-Law owns a 'hookah' manufacturing company. (it's a SCUBA diving apparatus). So there have been several articles in SkinDiver magazine about their product. They spend a lot of money on ads in this magazine. I know this for fact for he told me. I also know for fact that they were introducing a new device, and SkinDiver magazine told HIM to write the article and they would publish it. He did, and they did. Now how objective do you think this article was??

So next time you go to purchase something, ask yourself the question, how ethical is the company. What would happen to you if something goes wrong? Would an unethical company stand behind you if it was their fault, or try to say the problem was with this, that or the proverbial other. Do your research well. When you use a search engine, you can narrow your search by using a plus, '+' sign before each word or by enclosing the phrase in parenthesis like ·

"Six Sigma"
+six +sigma

Now, I'm NOT whining, I'm just pointing out some facts. For sometime now I have believed that companies that write custom software have been using the concepts of my software because these concepts grew out of the original Six Sigma Concepts from Motorola. Now I'm even more sure. Could YOU trust a company that may borrow ideas. Would they borrow yours as well?

Just FYI
(For You Information)