Outstanding, I'm glad these are on the right track!

Would you prefer that I shift the questions to a
more generalized tack? I have tailored these to
specifically address the problems in the context
of Microsoft dependancy (EG: MS dependancy is most
likely to injure County via abusiveness), and I
would be happy to take a stab at generalization
instead if you prefer.

On Sun, 7 Jul 2002 george@georgetoft.com wrote:

> More generally, the risks to using a single-source vendor is:
> 1.  The vendor becomes abusive (like you mentioned);
> 2.  The vendor goes out of business; and
> 3.  The vendor discontinues the product line without a replacement.
>
>
> Other than that, it mirrors much of my own thoughts.
>
> George
>
>
> Quoting Robert Bushman <plug@traxel.com>:
>
> > I think that the following questions capture
> > most of the points that have been brought up
> > over the past few days. Please help polish them
> > by, say, 8 PM tonight so I can format and print
> > copies. I will be at Maricopa County by 8:15 AM
> > tomorrow. I'm 6'2", 215, with a shaved head. I
> > should be easy to find :)
> >
> >
> > 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?
> >
> >
> > 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?
> >
> >
> > Experimental Migrations
> > -----------------------
> > Maricopa County has acheived an extremely high degree
> > of interoperability by using a single source for all
> > software systems. This is the most cost efficient
> > choice as the first step in connecting disparate
> > departments, and it requires accepting a single source
> > in the short run. Now that the initial effort of
> > integration is largely complete, when will experimental
> > migrations begin to eliminate the single-source
> > dependancy?
> >
> >
> > Competition 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?
> >
> >
> > Dependancy Spiral
> > -----------------
> > Using a single source for a few years in order to
> > establish integration is a great idea. The longer that
> > this continues, however, the more an organization
> > becomes dependant on a particular look and feel, and
> > 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?
> >
> >
> > 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?
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________________
> > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
> > post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> >
> > PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> >
>

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