Microsoft's Dynamic IT

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Mircrosoft has several issues

I guess that Microsoft doesn?t know or doesn?t care that these people already have processes, people and software products in place to do these things.

That's one of many process issues MSFT has to face. Let's take another example. Say I'm building a large medical records system (and I have just started such a project). And we're considering what back-end would work best. I like MS SQL Server, it's one of their better products. But when we introduce any MS product into the mix, we start running into resource creep.

First SQL Sever won't run on a headless Ubuntu or Fedora server without virtualization. Either way we're looking at 2003 license or server box to run it on. That mean Windows in the OS mix, will all the associated expense and management headaches that go along with it. Anti-virus software, automatic updates, account management. Now, we buy a SQL Server license, install it, all good so far, but we have to figure out what other licenses we need to make it work the way we want. CAL's? Internet connector license? I can't tell the client with certainty what it's going to cost.

But I can tell them exactly what a LAMP stack will cost, both now and in the future. And if we need more capacity, we just stand it up. If the client picks ColdFusion, I can tell them exactly what it will cost. JBOSS, TomCat...I can cost all those options, including the IDE's. .NET? Uhhhh. I can look up the license costs, but figuring out all the hidden fees and costs with MS is very difficult. Do you buy the boxed product or one of the subscription options? I've gotten different answers from their own people.

It's almost impossible to fix your costs with MS in the mix, but it's always higher than the advertised license costs. And it takes way more time to research the comparison. You'll get different bid costs on the same specs from two different solution providers. Both of them trying to up-sell you on a service contract all along the way.

Until they fix that, then efforts like Dynamic IT are just lipstick on a pig. Pricing has to be simple and definable and MS has to be able to deliver the solution for those quoted costs. Then my clients can compare one system with another. Here are the advantages, the disadvantages and this is how much it costs.

Microsoft is the only product line I can't give them straight answers on costs.

And neither can anyone else.

Posted by: Chad_z   Posted on: 06/10/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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