Investigate Cost Of Steel Production

Re: "Pain & Gain," September 2002, Page 47: Why [doesn't IW] write an article on the cost of producing steel instead of all the banter about users of steel being hammered with increased prices. Believe me, our prices have not risen above steel prices set in 1997--or 1985 for that matter.

Keith Busses comments are correct: "If those prices were maintained for another five years, every steel maker in the world would be bankrupt, and nobody would be making any steel."

No one can produce steel at these prices and be profitable--no one.

David Stobbe

Mechanical Engineer

National Steel Corp.

Portage, Ind.

Lightening The Load A Good Thing

Re: "SAP Lightens The Load," August 2002, Page 23: I think software vendors can all take a clue from Hasso Plattner's strategy to downsize SAP to useful proportions. In my experience, grandiose implementation plans are often truncated by team exhaustion, budgets or the very real need to get key people back to work on the business. For the last 10 years enterprise software vendors have used development resources to create whiz-bang applications that consultants tell them business needs. Vendors have done this at the expense of improving core business modules or testing their new releases that often break as much as they repair. I would estimate that most businesses that embark on the tortuous path of enterprise software implementation accomplish 70% of what they set out to do. It is high time a player like SAP recognized this reality.