County Forum Questions

[Seth Johnson]

Robert, et. al.,

This is really impressive.  I think you've taking exactly
the right tone and approach, just setting yourself to take
the first steps.  About three specific suggestions.  Sorry
for the late comments, but these are quick cuts and pastes
that you just might manage to put together before the show:

I thought it would be best not to end on the RFP question. 
Maybe start with it, or just put it somewhere higher, so you
end on a good point.

The rest of my comments have to do with not handing too much
over to the side of the way Maricopa County apparently sees
these matters.  Some pieces of this seem more like they're
there as notes for your folks going in.  Good points to have
in mind, but not necessarily to hand to the other side in
written form.  You could leave the parts I suggest excising,
for your verbal comments.  You can read here, or just jump
to the whole package I attach below.

So:

Take out the second sentence under "Experimental Migrations"
and rename the section "Migration from Single Source:"  I
think the experimental point is a great one, but it can be
left out to help shore up your own position.

> 
> Migration from Single Source
> ----------------------------
> Maricopa County has achieved an extremely high degree
> of interoperability by using a single source for all
> software systems.  Now that the initial effort of
> integration is largely complete, when will efforts 
> begin to migrate from single-source dependency?

Rename the one section "Competitive Pricing."

A little rewrite for "Dependency Spiral:"

> Dependency Spiral
> -----------------
> While the use of a single source greatly facilitates
> integration, the longer it continues, 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?

That's it.  Here's a suggested total package, with all the
pieces in a slightly different order:


> Introduction
> ------------
> I would like to thank the Maricopa County CIO's
> Office for inviting us to this meeting today. The
> Phoenix Linux User Group is a community organization.
> As such, we are dedicated to supporting our
> government. We look forward to finding ways that
> we can help Maricopa County to take advantage of,
> and promote, competition in the information
> technology marketplace.
> 
> Multisourcing
> -------------
> Single sourcing of technology products means accepting
> the risk that the single source will become abusive.
> Recently, Microsoft was found guilty by the Department
> of Justice of abusing its monopoly power. Maricopa County
> has a clause (MC1-902) in its procurment procedure to
> deal with such vendors, but Maricopa County is currently
> too dependant to even consider invoking the clause with
> Microsoft. What efforts are being made to mitigate
> Maricopa County's dependance on a single source which
> has been found guilty of taking advantage of such
> situations?
> 
> 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?
> 
> 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?
> 
> Migration from Single Source
> ----------------------------
> Maricopa County has achieved an extremely high degree
> of interoperability by using a single source for all
> software systems.  Now that the initial effort of
> integration is largely complete, when will efforts 
> begin to migrate from single-source dependency?
> 
> Dependency Spiral
> -----------------
> While the use of a single source greatly facilitates
> integration, the longer it continues, 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?
> 
> Competitive 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?


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