Re: Information Technology Standards and Guidelines

[Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net>]

--- From a message sent by Linux Idiot on 5/1/98 6:26 AM ---

>The point is, we have to tell people that they can not only same big
>bucks, but they can DO MORE, not just the same things.  People are very
>restricted by the MS design and it's intentional.

The missing piece of this puzzle is an objective total cost of ownership 
study. I've seen a few, but they're usually dismissed as PR for the 
product that wins. Obviously, such a study should include more than 
purchase price, but maintenance, training and productivity factors. If 
TCO was made the top selection criterion, I imagine we'd see far fewer 
public agencies specifying Wintel systems and Microsoft products.

A note of personal frustration along these lines: in the course of my 
professional work, I deal regularly with a state agency which is in the 
process of forking over a handsome fee to a consultant to develop a 
database in Access. If all goes according to plan, consultants like 
myself (and presumably, localities) conducting business with this agency 
will be mandated to use this database for important data collection and 
retrieval functions. 

The rub is that I developed a FileMaker a database for the same purpose a 
long while ago, and have distributed it essentially for free for several 
years. FileMaker may a cross-platform application, which Access is not, 
but the state agency staff is so convinced that Access is "the standard" 
that they have no qualms about foisting it on the entire state. Fact is, 
this decision was made without any public comment, and without any sort 
of debate. 

Worst of all, I have explained again and again to the staff over the 
course of several years that this level of "standardization" is 
unnecessary -- all they need do is publish the data structure they'll use 
internally, and allow anyone with a bright idea how to implement a 
database around it to have at it. But instead, they ripped a page right 
out of Microsoft's book, and behave in covetous and secretive manner, 
making it nearly impossible for anyone from the outside to "compete" with 
the agency's paid consultants.

   Mitch Stone
   Editor, Boycott Microsoft
   http://www.vcnet.com/bms 
 +---
   Part of innovation has to be integration. We are going 
   to continue to integrate products. --- William Neukom, Microsoft VP