[Am-info] History of NT in Banking.....
Mike Stephen
Mike Stephen" <mikestp@telus.net
Thu, 28 Feb 2002 11:59:17 +0800
Here are a few tasty treats from the google groups history file....
--------------------
I love this one.......from February 1991. Mere weeks before an about-face.
Am I having too much fun? Probably.............but this does reinforce how
important history is. To understand where we are.......we must know where
we have come from. Be it OS/2 - or whatever........
Steve
*******************************************************
****BILL GATES HOSTS MAJOR OS/2 BANK NETWORK EVENT 02/07/91
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1991 FEB 7 (NB) -- Microsoft CEO Bill
Gates has flown to Australia to celebrate the linking of
the 1000th terminal into what he described as one of the
largest and most sophisticated OS/2 installations in the
world. The Commonwealth Bank in Australia has developed in-house
software to run on the wide-area OS/2 banking network.
"The Commonwealth Bank is leading the field in this scale
of installation," Gates told Newsbytes. "Right from the
start we worked very closely with them, and one of our
people has been with their development team all along. It
was our first external consulting job, and its been so
successful we're doing a lot of it now."
.........................
Both the bank and Gates told reporters that the system
could not have been created with DOS or Windows, even with
the upcoming versions. "Only OS/2 gave us the necessary
background communications power" said project manager Roy
Macumber. Gates said this was a good example of Microsoft's
continued commitment to OS/2.
------------------------
BZ> From: timur@vnet.ibm.com
BZ> * From: timur@vnet.ibm.com (Timur Tabi)
BZ> * Reply-To: timur@vnet.ibm.com
BZ> * Newsgroups:
BZ> comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.be
BZ> a,comp.os.os2.misc
BZ> If you thought that was a good one, check this out:
BZ> ------------------------
BZ> Many of you may be aware that Commonwealth Bank
BZ> (Australia) (CBA) was one
BZ> of the first large customers to publicly commit to
BZ> Windows/NT. The prime
BZ> mover behind this decision was a gentleman named
BZ> Brian Morris. He
BZ> was very public about this choice and has visited
BZ> (or been visited by)
BZ> many other customers in relation to this decision,
BZ> was used as a key
BZ> reference by Microsoft and had lots of personal
BZ> focus from Bill Gates.
BZ>
BZ>
BZ> Today Brian Morris was "walked out the door"
BZ> (fired) by CBA.
BZ>
BZ>
BZ> One of the main reasons for this (he was an
BZ> Assistant General Manager)
BZ> appears to be (from usually reliable sources) the
BZ> decision to go to
BZ> NT and the fact that after almost 4 years the
BZ> implementation is a mess
BZ> and has cost significantly more than was originally
BZ> planned. Almost all
BZ> of the Bank's network is still running on OS/2 V1.3
BZ> (from Microsoft), new
BZ> applications have not been implemented and the
BZ> corresponding productivity
BZ> savings have not been realised (thus flattening the
BZ> Banks profit growth
BZ> when compared with it's competition). The board
BZ> was not impressed and
BZ> acted.
BZ>
BZ>
BZ>
BZ> While we do not yet know the actual fate of the NT
BZ> project (it may
BZ> continue or be cancelled) if a bank of this size
BZ> (1500 branches) and
BZ> with seemingly unlimited resources, cash and
BZ> extensive help from
BZ> Microsoft and Andersens cannot get the thing to
BZ> work after 4 years then
BZ> there is not a lot of hope for similar sized
BZ> customers.
BZ>
BZ>
BZ> As a person who spend 6 years selling and
BZ> supporting OS/2 into CBA (a
BZ> relationship which ended after a career limiting
BZ> "truth" session with
BZ> some of the CBA business people which did not
BZ> please Mr. Morris) it is
BZ> very difficult to feel any sympathy for what was
BZ> originally a very
BZ> dumb business decision to go with Windows/NT
BZ> instead of OS/2 V2.
BZ>
BZ>
BZ> OS/2 is NOT dead despite what people try to say and is the BEST
BZ> solution
BZ> for people who truely have distributed systems and
BZ> large networks.
BZ> --
BZ> Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@vnet.ibm.com
BZ> Architect, OS/2 Warp realtime MIDI subsystem
BZ> http://timur.austin.ibm.com (internal IBM only)
BZ> http://www.shirenet.com/~crusader/Timur (external)
BZ> --- Maximus/2 2.02
BZ> * Origin: OS/2 Shareware BBS, Fairfax, VA: 703-385-4325 (1:109/347)
---------------------------
In article <21d2h7$60v@rutherford.cssc-melb.tansu.com.au> rruther@watts.tansu.com.au writes:
> MS announced here downunder 2. quarter 94
> By the way the Commonwealth Bank has announced it will change over to Windows NT.
This decision by CBA is almost unbelievable. They are dumping millions in
software development - already underway - for there present MS OS/2 12 and 1.3
platforms. So cost of changing over could not have been a facotr in the
decision.
They are running 3 and 4 year old systems and looking at upgrading - in 2
years - to the new one....by which time they will be so far behind their
competitors they will never catch up.....so obviously competitive advantage
was not a factor in the decision......
They are going to a system that has not even been released yet...so a tried
and true, stable product was obviously not a factor in the decision.....
They are converting to an OS with huge hardware requirements - coompared to
their existing systems - so they wil be completely unable to leverage thier
existing hardwa investment. Obviously the cost of refitting the entire branch
network on 2 years was not a factor in the decision......
They run all IBM hardware on the host systems.....but seem to this that MS
owns the desktop......
Since all thee factors seem to have played no part in the decision - by any
rational standard - it is very difficult to see why they went NT at all.
Perhaps there were too few people involved in the deicaion who understand what
is at stake for the Commonwealth bank of Australia......
It is also worth pointing out that they are an all Microsoft shop as far as
the OS/2 is concerned.......there is virtually no IBMos/2 involved whatever.
IBM was not even asked to bid.......go figure. With 2.1 out and pretty much
rock solid...this is almost beyond belief......
This decision will cost the CBA *millions* more than the elternative. The CBA
customers will be paying for it for quite a while, i would think.
Contrast this with the Royal Bank of Canada who have gone IBM OS/2 for all
1,600+ branches throughout Canada - more than 20,000 workstations. They had a
look at NT and simply could not even begin to make a case for it.
Goerge Oliver, the IT manager at the Royal said here in Wellington a few weeks
ago that there was no way he was going to bet the bank's business on a system
that had not even been released yet, never mind that it had never even had a
V1.0.......
Heads are shaking in Australia over this one - in *and* outside IBM......
Steve
Steve
--
Steve Withers Wellington, New Zealand | DCF/2 V1.1 F: 1.62:1
stevew@swell.actrix.gen.nz (all night)| (and waiting)
swithers@vnet.ibm.com (all day) |
MMP supporter and OS/2 2.1 user |
--------------------------------------
> I'm working for a bank and who are currently looking at changing the
> client and server operating systems in their branch network.
>
> The choice is between Linux and NT (Workstation/Server).
>
> Needless to say the techies want Linux, but management are nervous
> about it (vendor FUD, etc., etc.).
>
> So, are there any retail banks that have already rolled out (or are
> currently rolling out) Linux to between 4000 and 5000 seats in 400 to
> 500 outlets?
>
> All info and/or pointers are welcome!
I have a file from 1995 that's relevant here, downloaded from some news
organization. (I wish I could remember the URL.) It's too old to be
really useful, but it's entertaining anyway.
Louise Adderholdt
NT causes banking crisis
_________________________________________________________________
Certain major banks across the world are counting the cost of an
ill-judged migration to Microsoft's Windows NT. The two banks, the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Westminster Bank
(NatWest) in the UK planned to move to NT for strategic systems
projects.
The NatWest is presently setting up an architectural unit for
determining the technical issues it must resolve for the Retail
Banking Platform (RBP) project. A senior National Westminster official
said a mix of poor project management and continuing technical
problems with the Windows NT platform has produced extensive delays
and additional costs to the RBP project.
Senior bank officials could no longer justify 'wasting' the bank's
money on internal IT, said the source. NatWest declined to confirm or
deny that the eventual roll-out of RBP to 650 branches would not now
be on the NT platform.
Craig Conway, president and chief executive of US-based Web software
specialist TGV said: "It is amazing that banks would be fast followers
of NT. As far as networking and scalability are concerned, Microsoft
carries enormous risk."
NatWest's RBP project, managed by Tony Warren, comes under the
ultimate control of NatWest's group IT director, Stewart Legg. The
system was due to be built using a Sybase database and PowerBuilder
but, after intervention from Bill Gates, it was decided to switch to
Microsoft's Windows NT.
The NatWest deal was significant for Microsoft because it marked the
firm's first move into the enterprise-wide IT solutions area.
And, on the other side of the world, the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia, a key Windows NT user site, has sacked the manager
responsible for its introduction because of implementation failures
and spiraling costs.
NT's future at the bank is now in doubt after Brian Morris, Assistant
GM, lost his job. The bank's management team was unimpressed by the
failure to realise projected productivity savings, which reduced the
bank's profit growth compared with its competitors.
CBA trumpeted its migration from OS/2 to NT in July 1993. But,
according to Phil Payne, MD of Sievers Consulting, scalability
problems have dogged its implementation. He said difficulties were
similar to those experienced by NatWest's retail banking division.
Payne added: "The problem doesn't seem to be NT as a platform, but the
scalability of systems management in large organisations. SMS software
(formerly Hermes) falls apart once it goes past about 500
workstations. In an organisation of this size, scalability becomes
really crucial."
According to sources close to the bank, most of its applications are
still OS/2-based, even though Microsoft has pumped resources into the
implementation. Steve Walker, software strategist at IBM UK, said:
"It's a situation you would expect from a vendor who says 'one size
fits all'."
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1995 CNME. All rights reserved.
>From the Desk of Mike Stephen