Trustees need to be aware of the real costs associated with ownership and deployment of an application and weigh those against the life span of the application, including hidden costs like database maintenance. In a recent study by the ABERDEEN GROUP, it was found that PROGRESS applications such as TAS/13 have a significantly lower five-year cost of ownership than ORACLE applications (70% less) and SQL server applications (21% less). The lowest cost of ownership belonged to Progress applications. The full version of this study is available on the World Wide Web at www.progress/services/pressrm/aberdeen2.htm or by contacting RAMAPO.

Finding qualified staff to manage and maintain a database is possibly the largest expense of the long-term cost of ownership. A distinctive advantage of TAS/13 on PROGRESS software is the ease of learning the application and maintaining the database. TAS/13 is written in a consistent intuitive style that facilitates learning. There is no need to have a computer analyst on the Trustee's staff.

TAS/13 provides a wide range of office automation features that reduces the cost of administration. These include Court and 341 calendaring, noticing, automatic generation of court pleadings, Final Reports and inadequate payment notices. Recently we have added the ability to download the Courts' data and incorporate it in the Data Base, thereby significantly reducing data entry costs.