|
Desert Oasis Software Company LLC was
formed with the specific goal of creating a new
LIMS program that would run within the ubiquious Microsoft Windows environment.
There was a dearth of good LIMS packages for agriculture and many labs were
still running old DOS systems that were not Y2K ready. This was obviously a
problem, as, in our area, agriculture is a major economic force. Without
reliable testing information, the farmers would not be able to produce their
crops as economically and with the environmentally sound practices that they
desired. One of our area laboratories had been searching for an adequate
replacement for their antiquated software, and, unable to find anything on the
market that met their needs, they contacted us. We initially did not realize
how great the need was, but it was soon apparent that agricultural labs were
grossly neglected in the software world. Much to our dismay, this same
situation seemed to be rampant in the Land-Grant universities as well! Many of
them were still using paper and pencil to record results which were then
transferred into a spreadsheet where they would be manipulated and finally
printed out, taken to a fax machine and sent to the clients. Even those that
had a LIMS many times had patch on patch, to the point where no one knew how
the whole system worked! This had come about in spite of best intentions as
student programmers came and went, and code was modified but not always
documented. If these scenarios sound eerily familiar to your circumstances, you
have our sympathies, and our phone number! We can also tell you how common that
is!
Pete, the Programmer's Personal Page
|
|
|