Steve's Seaside Life

Daily Archive: June 25, 2004

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Which Office Suite?

Which Office Suite? Is shaping up to be a fascinating decision making process.  I am not ready to expose all of my thinking on this topic but it goes something like this:

 

  1. Some people think its easy, MS Office alternatives are cheaper and most people don’t use the bells and whistles in Office so people will migrate provided the alternatives meet peoples core needs.

  2. I think its more complex than this and as a minimum the costs of migration, lost productivity, and compatibility and rework need to be factored in

  3. Intertia is a big one in Microsofts favour, for a business that has SW Assurance or an EA, the decision is deferred probably for at least 2-3 years after their EA expires and probably longer if they do a lot of data interchange.  That probably means 4-5 years from now!

  4. But this is the trivial stuff.  Sure direct and indirect cost comparison is important but I want to consider:

    1. How do people really use Office and is it really true that people only use a small amount of the functionality, and if they do, do they all use a different small amount?

    2. I also want to consider …

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More integration of Microsoft Products?

Microsoft Watch describes the trend at Microsoft towards more integration of Microsoft Server products.  Although the areas of integrations described don’t seem that great to me:

  • Management packs for all Windows Server System products that will allow them to be managed by Microsoft Operations Manager 2005;

  • Windows Installer and Windows Update support for all Windows Server System products; and

  • Consistent methodologies and prescriptive guidance support for all members of the Windows Server System family

There’s more on this topic here:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3359261

However whilst the Architect in me likes the idea of integrated products, built in a layered infrastructure fashion, with each layer isolated by standards, I don’t see this happening with Microsoft.  What I see is ever tighter integration between products, locking the products into a set that all need to be purchased from MS, and all upgraded together to get real business advantage.  At enterprise scale linked upgrades of products always spells trouble, (making the business case, getting the agreement, managing the disruption, risk), and the assumption of everything from Microsoft is equally troubling, unless their is a REALLY compelling value proposition, and that’s definitely not evident today. 

Loosely integrated products by contrast, ie those that rely on stable …

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The Joy of Working from Home

A little book that concentrates mainly on opportunities for working from home.  If you already have a job and are looking to work from home then its not so appropriate.  But it does give a few hints on issues you might face working from home like feelings of isolation etc.  Not my best find on the subject.  In fact I would recommend te following web site as an alternative to any of the books I have read:

http://www.flexibility.co.uk/index.htm