Forum to discuss and answer questions on Enterprise Agreement

Fri, 05 Jul 2002 17:27:19 -0700 (PDT)

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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