The Nephew

It is a well known fact in the world of computing that if you were, theoretically of course, to lock a hundred highly qualified and skilled computer programmers into a room, give each the identical specification to write a new program then at the end of whatever time period you set (nine months, a year, three years, more) you would end up with a hundred quite different programs.

Some, but not all programs would meet the specification quite well. A few would do so admirably but sadly quite a few, the majority actually, would fail dismally. Of one thing you could be certain is that each program would take a different approach. Rigid specification or not each developer would have their own idea upon which is the best approach. Thank goodness for that. It would be a dull and retrogressive world otherwise!

On our travels around the world over the past four decades we have occasionally met the classic whinger. Someone who has a fourteen year old nephew who could write a better program than us in his bedroom over the week-end. We would be delighted to meet this elusive child prodigy. He could have saved us over three hundred thousand hours of intensive research, development, coding and proving time. Along with the more than twenty million Euros in costs that went with it. On top of which we had to add all the usual business operating costs of accountancy, administration, insurances, sales and marketing, utility costs etc.

If you know of such a nephew, and the results of his weekend in his bedroom have been tested and officially accepted by authorised specifiers, educators, government bodies and even Microsoft Corporation itself with approval for use on the world's computers using their Windows Operating Systems , then please do let us know. In the meantime you might think it could be a good idea to invest in a few cents or pence per day for a share in our multi-million investment. As do almost all your contemporaries and (Oh, we nearly forgot to mention) your competitors!

Finally, don't forget ancient Confucian saying "He who pay least usually complain most."

Mistral's commitment:
Bringing the benefits of computerisation to our industry - without the historically associated problems.