FabFlixs extends our mail-order movie sales business. Customers will be able to go to our FabFlixs Web page, browse or search for movies by various criteria, choose the ones they want to buy, and then purchase them online via credit card. To distinguish us in the market, all FabFlixs DVDs will sell for $19.95, including all shipping and handling fees and applicable taxes. Management believes the low and standardized pricing will appeal to the buying public in more than sufficient volume to be profitable. Initial rollout will be aimed at U.S. customers; international purchasing may be added in future but is not part of the initial FabFlixs system.

Authorized systems and employees query the FabFlixs database to obtain information to fulfill and ship orders, update inventory, record the credit card transactions in accounting records, market to customers, and share film information with other selected entities. Note that FabFlixs provides the database of information for these tasks, but the modifications of the external systems (sales, inventory, accounting) are not part of this project. (We understand projects to modify those systems to make use of FabFlixs data will begin now that the FabFlixs requirements have been finalized.)

In addition to the "front end" services to the movie-buying public, FabFlixs will provide "back end" functions so that 1) authorized employees, as well as the database administrator, can easily and accurately maintain the FabFlixs database and 2) selected information from the FabFlixs database can be placed into XML format for transmittal to others.

FabFlixs will be constructed in phases so that each major system component can be certified as complete and correct before moving on to other system aspects that may depend upon it. Each phase has a deadline to keep the entire project on schedule to meet management's deadline of June 8--the day it is to be turned over to Quality Assurance for final testing before deployment.

The phases and their deadlines are