In September ’05 I accepted the position of ‘Computer Network Engineer’ for a small manufacturing company. During the 2nd interview the CEO of the company assured me that he understood that the infrastructure was a bit outdated and that a change was to be made soon. I didn’t fully understand just how bad it was here until after the guy I was replacing finally left. Armed with this background information I need some serious advice. The company is currently running NetWare 3.12 with DOS, and Win9x workstations because Solomon 3, the accounting/inventory/manufacturing software, only works in a DOS based environment. I have tried to explain, as did my predecessor, that there are better ways of doing these things. Ways that will provide more information, quicker and without having to call across the campus to ask someone to log out of the system. Not to mention the enhance security and reliability.
At first I was told that new software was too much, so I have demonstrated how nearly $25k per year can be saved just on hardware alone, so money wouldn?t be an issue.
I was then told that ‘the learning curve’ would make it too difficult for the users, so I negotiated training for all 50 employees that need to use the system for no additional cost.
Now, I have been told that we need to develop a manual system so that we will have a model to base the new software on.
The question I ask of all that view this is as follows….
Am I fighting a losing battle here? Can a NetWare 3.12 network running software that was obsoleted in 1992 really be secure and reliable and meet the onslaught of compliancy issues?
Even though the money is good and it really is a decent place to work should I cut bait and run?
Thanks for your time in veiwing this desperate plea for help.
