County Forum Questions

[der.hans]

Am 07. Jul, 2002 schwätzte Robert Bushman so:

> I think that the following questions capture
> most of the points that have been brought up
> over the past few days. Please help polish them
> by, say, 8 PM tonight so I can format and print

Didn't make that, did I?

> Open Data Formats
> -----------------
> In the mid 1990's, Maricopa County began a landmark
> program to make all public documents available online.
> These documents are published in Portable Document
> Format, an open format from Adobe Systems. Maricopa
> County uses Microsoft Office internally. Presumably,
> this currently includes the use of Microsoft Word
> and Excel formats. What steps are being taken to
> move these documents to an open format to guarantee
> future readability without dependance on Microsoft?

An open format that I believe all products in Microsoft's product suite
understand is XML. You awake Carl? :)

> Experimental Migrations
> -----------------------
> Maricopa County has acheived an extremely high degree
> of interoperability by using a single source for all
> software systems. This is the most cost efficient
> choice as the first step in connecting disparate
> departments, and it requires accepting a single source
> in the short run. Now that the initial effort of
> integration is largely complete, when will experimental
> migrations begin to eliminate the single-source
> dependancy?

Excellent question and a great way to bring it up.

> Competition Pricing
> -------------------
> It was quite easy to discover by looking around on
> the Internet that Maricopa County is 100% Microsoft.
> Surely Microsoft is aware of this, and its sales
> representatives take this into account when negotiating
> licensing agreements with Maricopa County. What efforts
> are under way to demonstrate to Microsoft that going
> forward it will have to compete for Maricopa County's
> software budget?

A very important issue for any business or government entity that has a
single vendor.

> Dependancy Spiral
> -----------------
> Using a single source for a few years in order to
> establish integration is a great idea. The longer that
> this continues, however, the more an organization
> becomes dependant on a particular look and feel, and
> the harder it is for employees to move productively
> between similar products from competing vendors. What
> steps is Maricopa County taking to prevent a dependancy
> spiral and restore competition for its budget?

Similar to the previous question. Combine the points leading up to the
question?

> RFP?
> ----
> How does Maricopa County guarantee competition in the
> information technology acquisition process, does it
> use RFPs? If so, what are the steps for providing a
> competing proposal, and are any companies other than
> Microsoft eligible to submit proposals?

What companies are elligible now and which ones were elligible when Maricopa
County decided to create a policy that unified on a single vendor?

ciao,

der.hans
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