On 15 Mar 98 at 0:52, Errol wrote:

> I manage a medical supply company in Johannesburg - South
> Africa which currently has 6 stand-alone P.C.'s, (all old
> 486 machines).
>
> I want to upgrade all the P.C.'s to 200 MHz Pentium machines
> and install an 8 station  NETWORK.

<snip>

> On the software side, I would like to know what System you
> recommend (Win95 or Win NT or MS BackOffice etc.).
>
> The programs we are currently running are:  WordPerfect v6.1
> and QuattroPro v6.0, dBase 2 and 3,   Ascent (a DOS based
> accounting package) and Netscape v4.0.

  At one extreme, you could just upgrade each machine and connect
them together in a peer-to-peer network.  At the other extreme, you
could invest in a high-end server machine and network each of the
workstations to it.
  My guess is that the optimum is somewhere in the middle.  You're
used to each station being pretty autonomous, and should probably
retain that as far as possible.  On the other hand, you may be able
to save money and improve things generally by designating one machine
as a gateway for Internet access and e-mail, and you may find that a
single shared multi-user database will become a business necessity.

> Soon I want to upgrade our antiquated programs (dBase and
> Ascent) to Windows packages.

  Since you are still running some DOS applications, I recommend that
most of your stations should run Win95.  There is gateway software
available that will also run on Win95, but I'd put it on an NT box
for stability.  The kind of package you're looking for will probably
require a server, either NT or possibly some flavour of Unix.  If it
runs on NT, you may be tempted to put it on your gateway machine, but
unless you also install a firewall, I would not recommend that.

David G