County Meeting

[Matt Alexander]

My random and possibly incoherent thoughts...

"Integration" was a huge theme, which apparently translates into using
only Microsoft products.  The CIO also was pretty happy to brag about some
award they received because of all their "integration."  Woopteedoo.  The
meeting started out with them basically laying the background that they
were happy with Microsoft and they weren't interested in changing because
Microsoft software simplifies their life.  There were also comments about
not wanting to introduce any new technologies because it's taken their
tech people a long time to become pros with Microsoft software, and they
don't want to disrupt that.  I've worked in IT for two large companies and
I understand the benefits of standardizing systems, but I was still
disappointed that they're not exploring the use of Free Software more on
the desktop to save costs and to use as leverage when negotiating
contracts with Microsoft.  The CIO repeatedly stressed that the amount of
money spent on Microsoft software was only 5% of the total budget.  I'd
like to see more information on this figure, as I'm suspicious of its
accuracy.  In any case, just because it's "only 5%" doesn't mean that we
should be spending the money if there are equivalent products available
for free.  Other common manager themes that were expressed included,
"Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft," (ie. If they choose Linux
and people don't like it, then they look bad, and tech managers hate to
look bad) and "Who do you go to for support if your Free Software breaks"
(Vendor support is available from many companies, such as IBM, HP, and
RedHat).
One of the more frustrating moments was when someone pointed out that many
of their webpages don't work unless you use Internet Explorer.  The
county tried to back that up by saying that most users use IE, so that's
what they support.  I hear this a lot...  such and such percentage of
websurfers use IE, so that's what we'll write our websites to, which means
that other users have to use IE, which then increases the number of IE
users, etc.  They did mention a goal of using XML on their websites and
possibly for their internal Office documents as well, so that's good to
hear.  I believe the biggest message they took from us was to use document
formats that are not proprietary and can be accessed on multiple
platforms, such as XML and PDF.
I think that the county (and most businesses) would be more open to Linux
and Free Software if they were confident in their employees' abilities
with such software.  But so many people focus on just Microsoft products
because that's the dominant platform, which of course perpetuates more
reliance on Microsoft (see the above problem with IE).
My primary goal was to help them become more aware of the alternatives
available.  They may be getting a decent licensing deal with Microsoft
now, but a couple years from now when Microsoft needs a bit more cash, I'm
fairly certain that costs are going to jump much higher, and I'm sure all
this "integration" is going to make it even more difficult to consider
alternatives.  Unfortunately, it's much too easy to pass the burden on to
the tax payer.
I think we should continually check up on the county and let them know we
are interested in the technology they choose, but also that we're here to
help them in any way possible.  Linux usually works its way into
organizations from the bottom up (almost never from the CIO down).  An
admin sets up Apache or Samba, for example, and eventually it gets used to
the point of being a critical part of the business.  I think more progress
could be made if we encourage the actual techies in the county to start
playing with Linux and eventually it will spread to important uses.  I
learned that Derek Neighbors works for Maricopa County, so I think he
would be an excellent resource for meeting other IT employees.  We should
encourage them to attend our meetings and any training we can offer.
Off to bed...
~M