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Doug Hood founded PMA Consulting in
January of 1988 with the motto TeleCommunications Solutions for Small Business
because he'd been reading too much Science Fiction and cruising around too many
Bulletin Boards. Doug not only thought that the day would arrive when home/office
computers would replace Mainframe systems, but telephone, fax, the Postal Service,
television, the Movie industry, Shopping Malls and Schools. He was quite roundly
denounced as a kook in those days because he made the mistake of telling people
in his semi-not-so-regular electronic publication the "CocoNut Wireless".
Samples of which we'll get around to posting here "any day now" (to quote
the Software Company we all love to hate). |
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The company remained a sole proprietorship
for only about a year before it absorbed Maggie Weber and became a 50% partnership.
It has always evolved along with the stated needs of its client base which was primarily
small Doctor's and Legal offices, as well as a good mix of personal home computer
users during its formative years. Local Area Networking became a stated need in
the early '90s and the company embraced Artisoft's LANtastic network operating system
(NOS) as its NOS of choice. LANtastic gave the proper mix of powerful features and
ease-of-use necessary for a small office to properly support a large base of network
clients without a lot of on-site hand-holding and PMAco began consulting Architects,
Engineers and Designers on running AutoCAD in a networked environment. |
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The Approved Hardware List is one of
the fundamental principles upon which our practice is built. Our client's cannot
keep a finger on the pulse of our industry because it is a full time job and they
already have a full time job keeping abreast of all the changes in their industries.
Cheaply produced (usually spelled 'inadequate quality check standards', but sometimes
just bad engineering) computer components are the bane of our existence as consultants.
We don't look good when we endorse poor products or condone such and we won't be
in business very long if we don't look good since the only thing we have to sell
is our reputation. Our Approved Hardware List is one of the tools we use to keep
our clients up and running longest while still keeping an eye on their computer
budget. For this reason, the List is a very dynamic tool, with constant updates
and revisions, but the rules for the List are quite static. Strong manufacturer
commitment to their particular market niche, high quality control standards (measured
in low failure rate in the field by percentage), excellent customer satisfaction
in the case of a faulty part (everyone gets bad parts, not everyone bends over backwards
to ensure happy customers in that eventuality) and finally a fair price. The above
list of criteria is in order of importance, you might notice where pricing falls
on that list. This is only one of the factors that differentiates us from SalesPeople,
we're consultants. |
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In 1997, with no small trepidation we
jumped into the "Smoke&Mirrors" of the Internet. Paving the way for
our clients to get registered Domains and local internet e-mail on their networks
was quite probably the most brutal learning curve we've ascended in the last decade.
Pasting a Website on the aether only seems simple and easy when you're reading the
advertisements for Web Authoring software. The reality (as usual) is a whole 'nother
story! Finding an Internet Service Provider with an adequate Unix/Windows server
ratio to give stable service at a fair price and then ensuring they had multiple
redundant connections to the different Backbone providers was an early hurdle that
when cleared showed up proper security from hackers and spammers as the next. To
exacerbate this problem we had to make all this work on a particularly frail Operating
System fraught not only with the normal bugs that Microsoft can't get properly killed
in any of their releases (else they wouldn't even be able to release every FOUR
years, leave alone every one year:); but also the outright sabotage they built in
to exterminate their competition. Somehow, we got through that one too. |
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Now that Y2K (Year 2000) is behind us
and we've got a "Micro$lop friendly" (purchased?) administration in the
White House, I'm sure we can anticipate even more new "challenges" to
be tackled. PMA Consulting will continue to fend off the alligators while still
keeping the sump pump running. Today our goal is "To help arrest the enforced
entropy of neighborly standards stopping the proper evolution of TheNET".
We're using a whole variety of tools to make that an eventuality. The Portland PC
Users Group /**/ is one of the most powerful
of those tools, and the RainCoast Regional Conference of User Group Leaders /**/
is another one. Helping to sponsor these activities and keeping the Nebeaux Nerdinski
Bulletin Board Service /**/ are
major campagns along this road. Promoting the Electronic Frontier Foundation /**/; the AnyBrowser /**/
campaign; the Internet Engineering Task /**/
Force; and vociferously condemning actions and attitudes contrary to these standards
is also part of the job. And finally, we're developing a whole array of Linux based
solutions to further combat the Microsoft "you can't get there from here"
syndrome. |
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We're working very hard to insulate
you from the ancient Chinese curse:
Thank you for letting us work for you. PMAco975seSandyBv Senior Partner and President |
