VAR and Wholesaler BUDGETexT Chooses to Run Its Business
on jBASE, Integrating a Range of Databases and Platforms
BUDGETexT, a privately held
company located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has been providing the
educational community with textbook services for over 30 years. An
early technological leader in the textbo ok
wholesaling industry, they were one of the earliest companies in their
market to automate operations with a computerized database of
inventory. BUDGETexT also offered the industry's first textbook
management software for college retail stores, with the current version
of this award-winning software in use in stores nationwide. In 1995,
the company expanded its business to also serve the needs of Elementary,
Middle, and High schools, and their districts.
“Basically, we buy and sell used
textbooks,” explains Count Darling IV, the Senior Analyst in the
wholesale side of BUDGETexT’s IT department. “When college students
sell their books back to stores at the end of the term, we’re one of the
wholesale companies that buy those back from the campuses or directly
from the students, bring them to our warehouse, and then sell them back
to campus bookstores at the beginning of the next term.” Their newer
business with elementary-through-high schools has a different twist,
where districts adopt textbooks for five to seven years, and BUDGETexT
buys books that go off adoption to redistribute them to other schools
that still use those titles.
TWO SIDES TO THE STORY
While BUDGETexT is primarily a
wholesaler, with three warehouses stocking 133,000 active college
titles, they’re also a Value Added Reseller (VAR), offering their campus
bookstore management system. Both sides of the business have long been
based on a MultiValue database, most recently Raining Data’s mvBase.
If buying and selling textbooks is the
core of their business, the store management systems offered by their
Business To Business Systems (B2B) unit also have a strategic value to
BUDGETexT. “The availability of used books is not like a new book,
where I can just place an order,” Darling explains. “The challenge is
to acquire our inventory of used books, which, from our perspective, is
far more difficult and important than it is to sell.” So the value to
BUDGETexT is not so much the income from system sales as it is the
related purchasing agreements, where BUDGETexT will negotiate exclusive
buy-back relationships.
For their customers, the buyers in
campus bookstores, the environment is very data intensive. Before each
term, stores receive lists from
professors of the books they will use and estimates of enrollment, and
the bookstores then have to find and buy what is needed. Stores can
always buy new editions from publishers, but the price difference
between new and used books is probably 30% to 40%, and, “the students
obviously like used books,” Darling comments with a smile. “It’s a book
they’re going to use for a total of three to four months and then have
no use for again.”
So BUDGETexT originally got into this
VAR business by writing an application to help the bookstores do a
better job managing this purchasing. In 1985, they wrote a MultiValue-based
textbook management package for IBM XT’s which automated that buying and
sourcing process. Stores would key in their want list and supplier
information, the system would generate a list of books that the
bookstore needed, the wholesalers would process the order, and then tell
the store which books they could supply. Today, this system allows a
store’s staff to manage textbook, general book, and general merchandise
inventory as well as administer point-of-sale transactions.
“We usually sell software systems tied
to a purchasing agreement to get the store’s used textbooks for some
period of time,” Darling says, “because the most important thing is to
get these commitments of purchasing opportunity from our customers.”
TAKING THE NEXT STEP UP
The most urgent need spurring them toward a serious system upgrade was
the physical vulnerability of the Windows NT machines their bookstore
system ran on. “We had to move off NT, not for technical reasons, but
because the part time employees in these college bookstores are mostly
students, and they think they know all about Windows,” says Linda
Graham, the Vice President of B2B Systems. “So we had people installing
instant messaging programs, games, you name it on these servers. It
looked like a PC, so of course people thought it was a PC.”
Since installations in Windows usually
require resetting the machine, these users would nonchalantly hit
control-alt-delete and knock out BUDGETexT’s store system, resulting in
technical support calls, downtime, and unhappiness all around. “I don’t
care what they put on their own computers, but I don’t want Duke Nukem
on the store servers,” Graham informs
us. 
So B2B Systems worked out the
specifications for a new system. They wanted Linux, and picked Hewlett
Packard servers to run it on, and Graham says, “We chose Red Hat’s Linux
distribution because we wanted a ‘name-brand’ Linux for support, and
because HP would support it.” Naturally they wanted to find a
MultiValue-compatible database solution, because, “We have so many years
invested in software,” she explains. “It’s a world class system, and we
didn’t want to abandon it.”
BUDGETexT’s B2B team conducted a long,
very detailed evaluation of the available alternatives, beginning by
quickly narrowing the selection to three choices: their current
supplier, IBM’s U2 line, or jBASE. They considered continuing with their
current database vendor, “but we ruled them out because we just weren’t
happy with them as a supplier,” according to Darling, citing a lack of
the level of support they needed.
So they asked for presentations from
jBASE and IBM, and Linda Graham says, “There was just no comparison
between the presentation, the type of information, everything -- we just
really liked what we saw in jBASE. They were so professional, we got
all our questions answered, and they were straight, honest answers,
too.”
“We compared reseller agreements, the
cost, references,” she continues, “and we felt that jBASE was just so
far ahead of the competition, that it would be absolutely the best
solution for us.” Then they went farther, performing a full test
conversion of their database and applications to jBASE on Linux, and
enjoyed a 98% conversion rate on their existing software. “We knew then
that we’d be crazy to pick anything else,” Graham states. They chose
jBASE.
Once they
made their determination known within BUDGETexT, the President, Whitney
Morgan, began to examine jBASE, the company. “He was impressed with the
way he was treated,” Graham says, “the business ethics, the way nothing
was allowed to just fall through cracks.” At the same time, the
wholesale side’s IT team started evaluating jBASE for running the
company’s core information system. The result: they are migrating both
of BUDGETexT’s main systems to jBASE, on a common HP/Linux platform --
the systems they sell as a VAR, and the wholesale side, which, at 300
seats, their entire operation depends on.
WHY jBASE?
It was for that combination of
technical and business reasons that they choose to run both sides of
their business on jBASE Software.
The Technical Reasons: Extensibility, Interoperability, and Integration
BUDGETexT was at the point where they
needed more extensibility, and decided that jBASE offered the best
solution. “We felt very comfortable with the technical side of jBASE,”
Darling says, “all the platforms it ran on, and where they’re going with
future versions.”
“One of the most obvious advantages is
the ability to write applications in the context of jBASE, and utilize
those applications on an Apache Web server or any other Linux Web or NT
Web server you want to,” he says. “It makes interfacing extremely
straightforward.” It was also important to them that they wouldn’t have
to rewrite their applications to move them to Linux.
“Technically the thing I like about jBASE is that it is much more
closely married to the operating environment,” he explains, “so that
there aren’t huge distinctions between what jBASE is doing and what the
native operating system is doing. For instance, you can create your
files to look like directories within Windows NT or Linux if you wish,
or you can create your files as native jBASE format files. And the
fact, of course, that you’re generating C code, and you can integrate C
code into your applications, will have a tremendous amount of benefit
for us long term.”
A STRONG BUSINESS PARTNER
“We
 need to know our vendor will
help us, give us as much care as we give to our own customers,” Darling
says. “Frankly, with IBM we felt like that we would just become lost as
a VAR. We’d be so small that we felt they probably wouldn’t be paying
much attention to what we need.”
“We deal with small customers,” he
continues, “and often we do little, unique things for them that require
our vendor to help us. IBM did not demonstrate to us that they’d be
able to provide that kind of intimate help, and jBASE showed us that
they wanted us as a customer more.” BUDGETexT liked the fact that the
culture of jBASE is such that they can easily develop close working
relationships with jBASE’s people.
Linda Graham adds, “The thing that made
us comfortable with jBASE was that, long before we said anything about
signing a deal much less partnering with them, we had people on the
phone, and sending us whatever we needed for a full evaluation. They
went overboard to help us,” she says, “offering support when we weren’t
even saying we were committed yet.”
Whitney Morgan, President of BUDGETexT,
sees the value of jBASE in terms of more effective business processes.
“jBASE gives us a competitive advantage by the way it facilitates
information flow,” he says. “I can now quickly make decisions on
inventory and shipping with information that before would have taken
weeks to assemble.”
“jBASE is very forward looking and has
capabilities that position it well for the future,” Morgan
continues. “A perfect example is the ability of jBASE to be open
to DB2, and take care of us so well in that situation.”
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, jBASE ANSWERS
Morgan is referring to what happened
along the way, when, as so many experience in these rapidly changing
times, BUDGETexT was presented with an unforeseen opportunity. While
still in the planning stages of the migration to jBASE, they had the
opportunity to absorb the assets of another company with an IBM AS/400®
and a DB2®-based warehouse management system. This was a system which
BUDGETexT had earlier evaluated on their own, and was part of their
long-term plans.
“As a part of our strategic growth
plan, we want to diversify our product mix,” Darling says. “We’d like
the opportunity to sell more than just used textbooks to the customers
we’re already dealing with.” To meet these goals required stepping up
to the next level with distribution, since the software they had
developed over the years to manage their wholesale business almost
purely addressed sales-related functionality, without any warehouse
management. But with the unexpected timing of the addition of this
system, already up and running, they needed to connect with their
textbook database on NT immediately, before the full conversion to jBASE
would be complete.
So BUDGETexT sent an informal request out to the general MultiValue
community, asking for help interconnecting their mvBase system with a
DB2 application on AS/400. “We talked to a local software house about
developing a middleware piece for us,” Darling relates, “but I was
uncomfortable with that, since we knew we were moving to jBASE. I felt
it would be a shame to invest all of this money in some middleware that
would become obsolete once we’d migrated.”
ALL THEY NEEDED WAS A jEDI ON THEIR SIDE
jBASE Professional Services had just
the answer they were looking for: a jBASE jEDI (jBASE External Device
Interface) which translates between DB2 and their legacy MV database,
seamlessly connecting their textbook and warehouse management systems.
“The good news was that we weren’t going to be throwing away time and
money,” Darling remarked, “because almost all of the applications we
wrote on the jBASE side will be reusable code when we migrate everything
to jBASE.”
 Three
different systems are involved: mvBase on NT running Modular Software's
Coyote Web Server, jBASE on NT with Apache Web Server, and DB2 on the AS
/400. Coyote turns their multiple mvBase systems into a web server,
sending input from an order entry screen, for instance, as an HTTP
request to the Apache server on the jBASE system.
jBASE BASIC applications run on the
Apache server as CGI scripts. A jBASE program receives the Coyote
information, and, using the unique jEDI architecture, passes it to DB2
on the AS/400. Full read/write access is provided from the mvBase
system to DB2 (Figure 1).
The result: three separate servers
running three different databases with incompatible programming
environments, all smoothly integrated by jBASE.
BUDGETexT’s IT department, working
closely with the jBASE Professional Services team, have added custom
enhancements for performance and dealing with idiosyncrasies of the
AS/400, such as its approach to error handling, etc. This work, d one
for the interim solution, was necessary for the full implementation of
jBASE, so they didn’t waste any time or energy on a solution of only
temporary value (Figure 2).
Now they have put this new warehousing
application to work immediately with their old mvBase system, and,
Darling says, “It’s going very well.” Once their conversion to the
full jBASE environment is complete, the jBASE database will seamlessly
communicate with the warehousing system on the AS/400, again via the
jBASE DB2 jEDI.
In addition
to the jEDI for DB2, jBASE has a family of middleware products for
intertwining jBASE databases with Oracle and SQL Server systems, and a
jEDI Toolkit for building flawless connections to and from Relational
Databases.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Asked if their wholesaling applications
are finished products, Darling laughs. “No, no, no -- we have way too
many people thinking about new things they’d like,” he says. “There are
also issues that we haven’t even touched on deeply yet, and things such
as GUI front ends for applications.”
For the future, BUDGETexT is
aggressively moving to extend customer useable applications to the Web,
for greater flexibility of access to information, and accompanying cost
efficiencies. “We have a tremendous number of applications,” Darling
says. “We have Intranet applications for our corporate people to use
when they’re physically not here, and for remote users, who can come in
and upload information to us, look at current information on our host,
and those kinds of things. A lot of those applications are already
written, and more are slated to be done. Our Web development staff is
interested in jBASE Web Builder for those purposes.”
“Again, what I value about jBASE as a
company is that I know there’s somebody there that I can communicate to
if I feel like I need to,” Darling reiterates. “The ability to
establish those relationships means a great deal to us. I think that’s
one of the strong reasons that we chose to go with jBASE, because we
felt like we could build those relationships.”
“jBASE made
us feel like we were going to get what we needed, when we needed it”
Graham adds. “I felt like that’s the way you do it for everybody, am I
right?”
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