RE: Customer Question - Minn. Demo

["Ken Clark" <ken@gesn.com>]

Don, its best to send these questions to the support list so everyone gets
the answers.

> From: Donald W. Biszmaier [mailto:dbglobal@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 3:20 PM
> To: Mike Brown; Ken Clark
> Subject: Customer Question - Minn. Demo
>
>     Mike:

Mike is out of town right now.

>     The people in Dakota Co. had several questions concerning networking
> that Barry or I were unable to answer for them.
>     - What software is in the accu-vote? Is the accu-vote a unix based
> product? We were never real clear what they were asking here.

The AccuVote is an embedded system.  It has a proprietary operating system,
or no operating system, depending on how you look at it.  Version 2.0
AccuVote and Central Count run an embedded kernel called Micro-COS.

None of this would be of particular interest to anyone -- its kind of like
asking what operating system your VCR uses.

>     - Can the gems server be installed in a token ring network?

Yes, if necessary.  They would require a token ring card on the server.
This would require someone on-site to install and test.

>         - Can it be used with Novelle?

Novell.  This is kind of a loaded question.  The GEMS server, running
Windows NT, can communicate with a Novell network to share printers and
drives.  GEMS does not make any specific use of a Novell network.

GEMS uses TCP/IP for communication with the JResult client, regional
servers, AccuVote-TS, and central count.  They would need to also use TCP/IP
if they want that functionality.  Runing TCP along with Novell is not
difficult.

>         - How can it best be used with multiple printers?

Best?  Don't follow this one.  GEMS can use whatever printers Windows NT is
able to communicate with.

>     - How does it function when installed on a wide area network? I
> think they indicated that they presently have 42 servers.

GEMS is a single-user application running on a single Windows NT server.
There are complications to this -- GEMS servers can be used as regional
result server as in Alaska, but that is probably not what they are asking
about.  There are no particular use for 42 servers with GEMS.

>     - Will the software run on all current network platforms?

Similar to the last answer.  GEMS runs on Windows NT.  If the question is
"does GEMS run on UNIX? (which is another network platform)", the answer is
no.

>         - What about furture software - will Global upgrade to match?

Match what?

>     What is the cost of read head replacement?

I believe there is some kind of standard maintenance agreement that includes
free upgrades.  Barry would know better than I what that agreement is (I
think 15%-17%, but I don't really know).

Ken