John Bennett,
Managing Director,
ICL Pathway,
Forest Road,
Feltham,
Middlesex. TW13 7EJ
2" April 1997
Dear John,
We have met on a few occasions. I currently work for the Information Systems Strategy Unit at POCL,
working for Wendy Powney. 1 am taking voluntary redundancy from POCL at the end of April and
would like to offer my services to you for a short period, in a specific area, when I leave.
In 1995, I developed the practical implementation of the ‘Five Generic Model’ that is discussed within
the Programme team and at Pathway. This model was meant to be the basis for all software development,
in conjunction with a standard retail EPOS package, for the BA/POCL Programme and provides a means
to implement all POCL transactions (both present and future) with little bespoke programming.
Now that I am leaving, I can approach you directly to offer my services to help develop the Five Generic
Model using the GlobalSTORE EPOS package from ICL Retail Systems Ltd as the base.
The development needed to the GlobalSTORE package is a discrete, and relatively short, piece of work
that is well understood by me. A transaction ‘engine’ would need to be built on the side of GlobalSTORE
to provide the generic functions.
The advantage of this approach is that the GlobalSTORE package is left unaltered and all improvements
made to the package (for example Euro functionality), for other ICL Retail Systems’ clients, can be used
by Pathway. The basis of this approach is to provide a framework that can manage all transaction flows
and can accept bespoke object development where additional functions are needed. This would include
the BA transactions, automated payments etc. in the same module, addressing the product integration
problems by building in functionality that will manage ALL transaction types, by design.
It also means Pathway does not have to develop new EF TPoS or logistic functions as these already exist
in GlobalSTORE. I have explained this method on many occasions, including to Greg Nice of ICL Retail
Systems, who would probably be keen to help.
' believe you are meeting some POCL people to discuss this approach in April and feel it could be good
idea for you a share my knowledge before I move on.
{am doing this purely independently of POCL and I am using my current experience to our, hopefully,
mutual advantage in that I can short cut Pathway’s learning process. No one knows of this letter, and
some may object to me sending it, so your discretion would be appreciated.
If this is of any interest please contact me on the numbers above.
Yours Sincerely,
Charles Hooper
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