Short response:
This very situation is a replay of what has been going on throughout corporate
history when a company obtains a product from a sole-source vendor. Sole-
source vendors are always considered a risk to the continuity of an
organization, and this very action is highly discouraged in management classes
(at least the ones I have been through). It is too bad that this triumph of
integration is now going to cost YOU AND ME $millions per year.
George
Quoting Robert Bushman <
plug@traxel.com>:
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2002 george@georgetoft.com wrote:
>
> > Their opinion may already fixed, however, we have the opportunity to
> make a
> > difference. I can demonstrate using hard numbers that we can convert
> the
> > common desktop (at least the ones I used at my last three jobs) to
> Linux,
> > including Lotus Notes clients and Outlook clients (the hard part!!!)
> simply
> > and with less expense than one year of Microsoft licensing fees.
> >
> > George
>
> Apologies - this is a long one. :)
>
> While I wholeheartedly believe that what you
> say is true of most organizations, I think
> Maricopa may be atypical. They are heavily
> invested in MS based technology, and have heavily
> customized it. I think we probably found the
> most MS dependant 10,000 station install in
> the state. Here's to good learning experiences!
>
> following excerpts from:
> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article/0%2c%2c11961_616731%2c00.html
>
> Precursor: in another article, they lauded their
> 1998 move to end-to-end Microsoft, since it allowed
> for perfect interoperability.
>
> ...--the County rolled out more sophisticated uses
> such as its homegrown, line-of-business application,
> Agenda Central.
>
> Agenda Central carries out the complex
> board-of-supervisors' approval process, replacing
> a cumbersome and time-intensive paper-based
> system. By submitting a request to Agenda Central,
> which submits forms to all bodies required for
> approval simultaneously rather than serially,
> Maricopa County estimates that it shaved the time
> it takes for an agenda item to be routed and
> approved from eight weeks to about two.
>
> This sounds to me like a rudimentary workflow
> system. I'm betting it is written in something that
> is not portable off Windows. Workflow systems are
> expensive and cranky, with huge value added for
> paperpushing operations (no offense intended, it's
> important paper, and there is a lot of it to push).
> I think it's fair to assume that migrating this to
> Linux would be an expensive undertaking.
>
> ...the Electronic Business Center
> (EBC), and have certain items, such as pull-down
> menus, appear however they prefer.
>
> Any bets on whether this requires MSIE?
>
> Several collaborative and messaging benefits are
> also available in [EBC]. Maricopa County
> has written a front end to Microsoft Outlook
> public folders to create a bulletin board
> system. With this system collaborative computing
> or information sharing can be carried out through
> the EBC. A comprehensive calendaring system shows
> all County and/or personnel events, such as hikes
> and major meetings. Technology tips and tricks are
> also available.
>
> "We integrated EBC with Microsoft Outlook 98 so
> users can have EBC as their homepage and it also
> has an interface to a groupware client so it can
> show, for example, your tasks or messages," says
> Paul Allsing, director of Maricopa's EBC. "[Our
> Web site] demonstrates the Web interface can do
> more than simply publishing; it can do tasks
> through automation."
>
> Is this *really* a custom version of Outlook, or
> just a heavily tweaked set of folders in Exchange?
> Probably the latter, and therefore maybe it could be
> accessed with Ximian Connector and Evolution. But
> if it is custom software, integrated with Outlook,
> it's not going to be a cheap migration - the software
> would have to be reimplemented on Evolution. Also
> bear in mind - Connector isn't cheap, and AFAIK
> there is no major Open Source equivalent of Exchange
> (integrated scheduling and messaging).
>
> The County is running Microsoft Internet
> Information Server (IIS) version 4.0 on Windows NT
> servers; it has a total of 30 NT-based Internet,
> intranet, and groupware servers.
>
> The underlying database is SQL server 6.5
>
> Whaddya think? Platform independant SQL with a
> persistence layer written in an independant language
> to make migration easy? Maybe, but I doubt it.
>
> "The strategic direction for
> Maricopa County is that any future enterprise
> applications will be Web-based," says Allsing.
>
> This, I think, is the thinnest point in their
> armor. The best way to ensure a platform independant
> thin-client architecture is to stick some alien
> platforms in front of the front line users. But
> I'll bet it's like it is here at my office - lots
> of mini-apps, like our time accounting package, that
> require the Microsoft Pseudo-Java VM or ActiveX.
> No single app would break the organization, and
> each has an easy to find alternative in the Open
> Source world, but they're everyhere, like
> cockroaches. Hunting them all down could take months,
> or years - and every time you find one it'll be
> because 100 people who just migrated are screaming,
> "I can't do my job!"
>
>
> So yes, I agree that converting one PC is easy,
> and converting 100 PCs is only five times as
> hard as converting one PC - but only if there
> is no true MS dependancy. I fear that Maricopa
> is heavily addicted, and that they see MS as
> one of their great success stories.
>
> For all these reasons, I think that a migration
> that starts slow is in the best interest of
> Maricopa County (for all the reasons that we
> all know so well), and in the best interest of
> the long term advancement of Open Source in
> our government (if their first experiences are
> encouraging and not too painful, and we keep
> showing them that it is the most wise decision,
> they will expand the program).
>
>
>
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