Those who know me know I rarely recommend any specific software as each company has different equipment and different needs. In addition, I typically suggest companies which aren't 'very big' to consider making their own solutions with what they have in-house. But even big companies look at alturnatives - Motorola Guadalajara contracted with an outside firm to program several databases for their LotusNotes system - document control, nonconformance tracking, etc.
It has been some time since I directly worked with Powerway products. My past experiences were nightmares. However - I cannot say they have not upgraded their product and services - I don't know. Powerway is a big, long established company with big advertisements so they must be doing something 'right'.
I do advise companies, as I do with any software, to try before you buy. Make them come in and show you it works on your network and with the computers you have. That was, in fact, a past complaint with Powerway. They came in and 'demo'ed on a Powerway portable computer. They got the sale based upon the salesperson's assurance the clients' equipment and network was sufficient - which was not the case as was discovered as soon as they tried to install the software on their network after the software was purchased. Their network couldn't handle it. Nor was the installation and 'initiation' as advertised - legacy documents had to be 'cut and pasted' a section at a time one document at a time. Very, very time consuming - put the company way off schedule and dented the budget a bit.
I wanted to reply to this because, as you say, you inherited a functioning system which is must different than trying to get the thing up and running from zero - I know several companies which bought and quickly abandoned Powerway because of the problems. However it should, in all fairness, be taken into consideration that companies may not fully involve their IS folks and in the process of working with Powerway (or any other software company) may not accurately described their systems.
Again - my 'opinion' is to ensure you 'try before you buy' any software. Make them set it up on your computers on your network and show it works. If you have legacy documents and they say they will 'easily import', I would say 'show me'.
As a last note I might point out that LotusNotes gets the same treatment as Powerway - there are those who love LotusNotes and those that curse it just like some folks have good experiences with Perry Johnson and some hate the very name of Perry Johnson.
[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 27 October 1999).]
