Frequently Asked Questions About Blue Chip Consulting Services

1. Blue Chip Founder - Ron Herman
2. How soon can I get help for my technology project?
3. What is the general outline of the agenda during consulting onsite visits?
4. Please describe the nature of the specification that would be generated by this consulting?
5. What other deliverables are there as part of an onsite visit?
6. What are your expectations of us prior to and during the visit?
7. What kind of people do you need to have involved in your visit?

Founder - Ron Herman

Since 1982, Ron Herman, president of Blue Chip Computer Systems, has headed one of the largest Hewlett-Packard dealerships in Los Angeles. He has been an active and innovative member of the Unix community for over fifteen years. Ron has distinguished himself as a cofounder and vice-president of APC Open, a national organization of SCO Advanced Product Centers. In addition, he has served as a member of the Santa Cruz Operations Dealer Council and has led Blue Chip Computer Systems as one of the largest Unix resellers in the nation.

Blue Chip Computer Systems has provided Open Systems solutions for 20 years. Most of these installations have been commercial business systems. Blue Chip operates as a systems design and consulting firm. The "Blue Chip Sales approach" is different than most others: Beginning with detailed analysis of the customers needs and applications, Blue Chip tailors equipment and software to the user's needs. This provides a more productive and cost efficient system.

Blue Chip has also been extremely active in the promotion and sales of multiprocessor technology in the marketplace. BCCS has sold numerous symmetrical multiprocessing computers in various environments. These have been used as database file servers and multiuser systems. BCCS has a great aptitude for connectivity, including, TCP/IP, NFS, IPX, X.25, SNA, ISDN, and Frame Relay. Network integration is a key to our success in multi-vendor solutions.

Ron was selected by Novell Corporation to be an active member of their advisory board. The board is responsible for directing key technology, marketing and business strategies for the UnixWare product line. He also is a member of the Wyse computer advisory board. This select committee comprised of Wyse executives and six leading VARS (selected from across the country) has been chartered to help align Wyse Technologies server products with current and projected market demands.

Ron, as a fanatic bicycle rider became involved with the Route Committee of the California Aids Ride `94. He was able through computerized mapping software to develop maps for the entire ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and was a key contributor to the success of the event.

Blue Chip Computer Systems has been selected by numerous leading manufacturers as a testing ground for up and coming technologies and products. These manufacturers include, Novell, SunSoft, SCO, DigiBoard, Corollary, and Wyse.

Ron served on the Mayor's Special Advisory Committee On Technology Implementation for the City of Los Angeles. In this advisory position to Mayor Riordan he addressed the direction of the city in respect to information technologies, encompassing communications, and processing of voice data and video information.

High performance systems are essential for Blue Chip solutions as we graduate our customers from character based solutions to the graphical client server environments of today. Systems with distributed database applications also require the data integrity that customers expected from their large glass house installations. Blue Chip believes that mission critical applications will perform with high efficiency, security and reliability on Open System Architecture platforms. Customers will benefit from this approach with reduced operating expenses and greater end user productivity.

Back to questions

How soon can I get help for my technology project?

Generally speaking, consultants are available to start a larger project within 1 to 2 weeks of your initial contact with us, depending on availability. We can often fit emergency PC, network, and database troubleshooting into our schedule within 1 week. However, lead times can be much longer for larger project requests like major database development, websites or network installations. 

Back to questions

What is the general outline of the agenda during consulting onsite visits?

The first visit agenda includes the following:

• Review of your long term goals for the project
• Identify other (legacy or ancillary) systems that we will be interfacing to or from
• Define all of the major components of the system for each phase
• Inputs – Discuss how you want the user to interface with the system
• Inputs – Discuss any electronic feeds to or from the system
• Outputs - What graphics or data reports should the system produce
• Discussions to determine features needed to support desired behaviors
• Review your current system to see what components we must support in the new system
• Discuss the "modes" that the system needs to support and the mechanisms that we can employ to meet your needs (i.e. link directly to live data feeds vs. stand-alone)
• Establish a logical phased development and implementation schedule based on your priorities

If you choose to move forward with a project, subsequent visits may include a new software progress update, an informal presentation of our status, and training (if needed). We also use that time to perform integration testing with live connections, as well as receive feedback from your users. For larger projects, we typically conduct informal preliminary and critical design reviews on the path to a final delivery. Time and expenses for preparation and delivery of these reviews need to be budgeted.

Back to questions

Please describe the nature of the specification that would be generated by this consulting?

A specification provides just enough detail for all parties to understand what the attached bid will and will not include. It is not detailed enough to show exact screen layouts, but provides a good description of the proposed application, including a high level program flow and options. It also includes a list of all major components and how they interact; generally a high level architecture diagram with accompanying text.

Back to questions

What other deliverables are there as part of an onsite visit?

The first onsite visit is designed to gather requirements and set expectations for all participants. During this visit, we may show examples of similar work that is relevant to your problem to promote discussion.

• During each first visit, we typically educate through examples to show Visio features "in the box" and potential customizations. These are useful to stimulate discussion on what is possible

• Depending on the complexity of the first phase, a deliverable may include a simulation or prototype to use as a discussion tool. If we have budgeted for enough time, and if we receive enough information during our discussions to produce a prototype, we will deliver it to you whether or not you decide to proceed with the project.

For a development project, we will jointly establish a schedule for additional visits during the project, and assign each visit a distinct purpose. For example, we might schedule 4 visits over the course of a 60 day project for design reviews. Although we have developed many projects remotely without site visits to reduce costs, there are advantages to meeting in person if the budget allows.

Back to questions

What are your expectations of us prior to and during the visit?

To enable us to deliver the most value to you during initial consulting, we request that you provide the following:

• Information in advance regarding the nature of the problems that this system will address and their priorities so that we can prepare for the meetings
• Ensure that the key contributors are available to meet with us during our visit, and that they have been briefed on the purpose
• Examples of current data from systems that the proposed application will interface with; inputs and outputs
• Electronic or paper drawings of current objects that you want modeled in Visio

We highly recommend that you share your project budget expectations with us so that we know your goals. We do not want to propose a grandiose system with all of the bells and whistles when your expectations may be different.

Back to questions

What kind of people do you need to have involved in your visit?

Users who understand and will participate in the vision of moving from your current methods to a more automated and efficient approach

• Developers for other systems that we will interface with
• People who control other applications and data from systems we will interface with
• Decision maker(s) so we (the team) can present the systems concept towards the end of the visit

Back to questions