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# Fw: Accu-Touch Design

- To: "Mickey G. Martin" <mmglobal@earthlink.net>
- Subject: Fw: Accu-Touch Design
- From: "Ian S. Piper" <ian@gesn.com>
- Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:30:27 -0500
- Cc: "Support" <support@gesn.com>, "Salestalk" <salestalk@gesn.com>

-----Original Message----- From: Mickey G. Martin <mmglobal@earthlink.net> To: Ian S. Piper <ian@gesn.com> Cc: Talbot Iredale <tiredale@gesn.com>; salestalk@gesn.com <salestalk@gesn.com>; Support <support@gesn.com> Date: Thursday, April 15, 1999 11:17 PM Subject: Re: Accu-Touch Design "Ian S. Piper" wrote: I believe that the battery must be able to run all day or at least be easily swapable with minimal interruption of service. With the Accu-Vote paper ballot system, if the power goes out, the people who arrive at the polling place can still vote and leave. The paper ballot can be processed later. With the DRE system, if the power goes out all day and you have a 3 hour battery backup, nobody can vote after three hours. A DRE system needs to be capable of running all day from just prior to opening the polls to an hour after closing the polls (approx. 14 hours/ FEC says 16 hours). A battery large enough to run a system all day long would be expensive, so a swapable battery system would be my choice. That is, put a minimum capacity battery into the DRE to run it for 3 hours (that would keep product cost down per unit), but make it easily accessible so it can be swapped out quickly (minimizing disruption to voting) if the power is out longer than 3 hours. Trouble shooters on the road on election day can carry spare battery packs with them in the event of a power outage longer than 3 hours. I agree with Ian on the battery(provided the world was perfect) but if we can,t have a battery that lasts all day then what? A battery with at least 3 hrs. would allow time for providing a portable generator to be set up or something. Mickey, you didn't read my second paragraph on that subject. Also, I believe that the one single thing that now sets us apart from everyone else is the size of our screen. I don't believe a smaller screen would be of value because no matter the jurisdiction size they may have races with a large number of candidates or issues that require large amounts of space. I disagree with Mickey. Right now, we competing with small screen DREs. Right now, sales people are having to justify the cost/benefit of a large screen. What if a customer doesn't mind a small screen unit? Wouldn't you like to have the option to sell them what they want and be competitive? Global cannot sell 15" DREs for the same price that the competition is selling 10" DREs, but if we are capable of producing a 10" Accu-Vote TS, we can be competitive. Having said that, multiple options that have to be implemented on the manufacturing floor are what kill me in production (as opposed to PCMCIA pluggable options which are easy to implement). To stay ahead of orders, I have to manufacture to what we think is going to be the flavor of future sales. Having multiple flavors of a product means having to manufacture a bit of everything and not having enough of one thing come shipping time. But if the flavors are kept to a minimum of two (say vanilla and butterscotch ripple), I can manage production stock more effectively. I think those two flavors should be the 10" and 15" screen option. Ian Sorry Ian, can't agree with you on this one. What if we were in the business of selling airplanes and someone wanted to buy a jet to fly across the ocean but did not have the money to buy one that would hold enough fuel? They did however, have enough money to purchase a smaller jet and wanted us to sell it to them. Would we sell the smaller jet even if we knew it could not handle the job? I think not. What if the customer's requirements are only to cross the Great Lakes? In your world, you are only going to be able to sell him a jet that flys across oceans but your jet isn't pratically priced for flying over the Great Lakes. Are you saying you wouldn't be interested in selling him a Great Lakes' product and lose market share to the competition? Or are you saying Global should only sell Boeing 777 and not Lear jets. Ian

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