The other day I reached out to various folks knowledgeable about technology in our industry. One of them was my friend Dennis Cunning. Dennis and I spent many years side by side on the front lines of our business and I grew to respect his knowledge and wit. When I asked him to write a few words on the topic he spent about two hours and came back with 2000. His work will be printed in our April Parking Technology Today issue. Here’s an excerpt of his piece:
Technology In Parking!
Sometimes I think of this phrase and muse about it when I compare it to other common day phrases such as “Military Intelligence”, “Deafening Silence” or “Living Dead” (I do have to admit that the latter I believe in after visiting certain garage parking offices)!
PC’s didn’t exist in parking garage, much too expensive plus no parking manager could even spell PC’s let alone run one. Carbon paper however did work just fine with a typewriter (now you know what cc means on all those emails)
Now you start to understand why the life of a PARC system is about 7 years. Yes, they can run much longer; getting parts or finding replacement boards is a problem sometimes but not out of the realm of possibilities.
- Here is a new word to learn – “Designed Obsolescence”
FAPD released Scan about 1983 and ScanNet Central Management about 1986. What a dramatic change in the Parking Industry. ScanNet; that was 32 years ago, before many garage managers of today were even born. The password of the system has a highly kept secret: FAPD. More than 70% of the systems I have audited still had the default password for access.
PCI DSS EMV, this is an exercise in futility. Before you ever install the current version, the Banking industry has changed the rules so the current version is almost obsolete when it is installed. In two more years all one needs to do is spend another $15,000- $20,000 to upgrade to the newest version PCI software. Does Ponzi scheme come to mind???
And all that is before Dennis really tells it like it is. Check out the April Issue of PT.
JVH
