Community Consulting

We have watched for some time this back and forth over whether the Columbia Association knows what it is doing in bringing its reservation and payments systems online. You can read the Flier's latest dispatch here.

Which makes us wonder if folks on both sides might benefit by reaching out a bit more to all the resources in this community. Plenty of people know a thing or two about software around here. We've got colleges and community colleges all over. The county government and schools are trying to tackle the same challenges. And Columbia itself is home to one big national firm that seems like it might have a little expertise to share:

MICROS Systems, Inc. provides enterprise applications for the hospitality and retail industries worldwide. Over 220,000 MICROS systems are currently installed in table and quick service restaurants, hotels, motels, casinos, leisure and entertainment, and retail operations in more than 130 countries, and on all seven continents. In addition, MICROS provides property management systems, central reservation and customer information solutions under the brand MICROS-Fidelio for more than 20,000 hotels worldwide, as well as point-of-sale and loss prevention products through its subsidiary Datavantage for more than 50,000 specialty retail stores worldwide. MICROS stock is traded through NASDAQ under the symbol MCRS.

We not suggesting CA put out some bureaucratic RFP seeking input. But perhaps something more informal; we've seen many examples where groups of techies come together for a weekend to noodle a problem. And there are plenty of institutions in this town that could use some help.