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Softstar finishes first phase of florist project

Revealing this to reporters, Softstar General Manager M V Brij Mohan said: "1-800-Flowers is a leader in the floral industry with a multimillion dollar turnover and a great plan to expand the business using the technologies of network computing and Web paging. Softstar and Softcase achieved the distinction of being one among those network computer integrators by

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developing and implementing customised application software for use on NCs by 1-800-Flowers.

"The application software for Atlas' order entry, personnel and customer satisfaction information systems has been developed using Oracle's Developer/2000 and Designer/2000 in which Softstar has expertise. Currently, Softstar and Softcase, in association with Oracle Corp, are working on integrating the newly developed Order Entry system with Oracle Financials."

1-800 Director (Information Technology) Guru Ghosh, while describing the details of the project, said: "The concept of moving from the existing mainframe-based legacy system to client/server-based Oracle platform was initiated by 1-800-Flowers a few months ago and Oracle was approached for the design and development. Oracle recommended Softstar and Softcase as developers of the project.

"The decision came as a sequel to Softstar's track record in Oracle-based development especially using Oracle CASE tool, Developer/2000. The development work, started off by Softstar in July, has been completed in around two months."

Stating that the existing legacy systems had several drawbacks including slow response times during peak seasons, non-availability of a disaster plan, nil growth potential, high system administration costs and longer training cycle, he said the new system being implemented by Softstar on network computers addressed all these drawbacks and provided for a higher productivity, faster response, easy training, efficient and user-friendly operations.

"We saved around 66 per cent of development costs by contracting the project offshore," he said and added that the developed project, which would be used for 1-800 operations worldwide, is being tested in New York.

Giving details of Softstar's operations from India, the company's director, G Narasimha Rao, said Rs 15 million in revenue is expected during the current year. The company is in the process of capitalising on the domestic software industry. 1-800 would be the company's fourth overseas project in the past four years.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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