Two Customers on One Trip for once

I'm on the road again. This is just the third trip to a customer this year, and most likely the last. There's some chance I'll be back out here (NY) one more time this year and a time or two in the first few months of next year. This time, I'm here for two days of meetings with M and a day with O. My next few visits will most likely be for M, J, and B. Assuming J and B actually ever sign the PSO services deals.

Last Wednesday, 4 execs from M were out to see us; mostly it seems to have been a junket - just a chance to bring them out and spend some money on them. I think it all comes out of Sales' budget. At least, I hope so. The most substantive part of it, as far as I can tell, was my part in which I, with a little bit of backup from Patrice, discussed the major options for how to proceed.

At this point, they have two systems on our 6.1 product, one for each of two divisions. They need to accomplish a few things, in no particular order: get both divisions to 6.5.1 (our version with an HTML client), merge the two back into one environment, convert their users from Java to HTML, implement ER for their third (and final, I think) division who have to have HTML, and implement PR, eventually for everyone.

The only dependencies in this stack of work is that there has to be a 6.5.1 system available to implement the third division's HTML ER and to implement PR, which we won't deploy on 6.1 Java any longer. The thing that finally convinced them to go with my recommended option was when I pointed out that creating a third system for that third division would give us a 6.5.1 platform for HTML ER and for PR essentially immediately but that they aren't going to be ready to implement the third division for at least a couple of months, because they don't have the requirements together.

The best part of it was that I turned them to my option and convinced them to go with it in front of Patrice's boss. She was quite complimentary and I'm very glad that she noticed.

Rachel was very cute today. I called, I think it was from Denver, and she told me that she had been reassuring Baby (one of her dolls) that Daddy is coming home. We've been talking about this trip for a few days already, to make sure she wouldn't be surprised by it. She's gotten a lot more cooperative lately, which has been really nice. It's especially true when we make a particular point of asking her something nicely, but even when we aren't so exquisitely nice about it, she's still much more likely to go along than she was just a few weeks ago. I know there are phases, but it's a drag when she's constantly digging in and being contrary and stubborn. As if I don't know where the stubborn streak comes from!