[dundee] Microsoft tactics - Universities

Mon Sep 17 13:47:44 BST 2007

hmmm.. sorry I've been reading this thread in reverse?

an interesting concept, and if you've mentioned any other
remote service provider rather the microsoft , then I'd say
brilliant idea. The fact that microsoft are even attempting large
scale hosting of important data scares the life out of me. Google, who are currently the world leaders of large clustering solutions, have solved lots of a low and high level engineering problems with their network. Miicrosoft have trouble with 16GB limit for it's JET database technology...hmmm....oh dear.

Another think to think about is politics and privacy, microsoft
don't really have a great track record with 'fair' business 
practices, and I'd certainly not use the outsourced email
system for say developing post graduates projects, or 
business incubator projects, for fear of seeing my idea/source code on the microsoft home page the following week.

I'd probably feel the same using any ones outsourced email.

I was once involved in the these discussions once upon a time
in a professional setting; There were going to cluster exchange
and get clients to connect via the internet to them and outsource
email and administration. I started to ask some questions. 
What if the internet goes down, either last mile or greater
routing problems (read denial of service). The management
gave me blank stares? 

It does'nt go down they laughed. Were going ahead asap.

I walked out the office, and quit. ;-)

So, although there may be many pro's about outsourcing, 
at the end of the day, if you start strimming back the IT
in uni, the uni sort of becomes a glorified cybercafe,
with not much expertise on the ground, that's gotta be a
bad thing.

I'd certainly look at a managed solution, which you can 
host onsite, rather than in a remote datacenter, where
anything can happen. 

It would be really great to see, organisations choosing solutions
rather than coroporate brandnames at the end of the day. 

okay, email support can be drag, but I used to run exchange
for living, and it drove me nuts. Before that I ran a unix
based email system, it was much more well behaved, and
treated me much better. Could you ever trust an email
server system them which was release as v1.0 as version 5.5?

what the hell? did reality just stop for a while.

outsourcing also may stop innovation, once your services
are leaked away you can't easily take them back. You
may save $$$ in the short run but in the long term you suffer.

You may get a good deal this year,but 4 years down the line,
then the vendor just goes and doubles the price of it's outsourcing, by that time, you don't have the skills or infrastructure in house to reign it back in. Scary thought.

When you not only own the infrastructure, but the code and
API's that go with it, then your in control of software costs
etc etc. go on be brave, hire 4 open source coders! 
and see what happens. 

are they management chasing ghosts? has anyone at the
upper levels actually tried to calculate the costs saving in
both hardware and software if they went to either a different
vendor or the use foss? How many technicians/coders could be writing bespoke software for the uni, rather than firefighting
close source software problems, because they have no way of fixing software?

microsoft shops currently resemble motor mechanics that
can't open the bonnet, doors, or windows of your car. You'll
take you car to be fixed, they will scratch thier chin and go...
hmmm...yeah...better goto www.microsoft.com for a fix.
seems like a pointed exercise. When you involve vista, 
the mechanic will even say, is that a car? I don't 
recgonise it, it does'nt even have wheels?!!!!!

oh, I did'nt even mention security for outsourced applications......whoa.... can of worms on the horizon.

When approaching the use of Foss in organisations, there
are lots of issues to concentrate on rather then the freeness.

you gotta look pasts the ethos and ethics, and get down to
the purely engineering side of open source/outsourcing

oh, p.s. can I have a larger email quota please ;-).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-Xchange

or something like that... suse open exchange? 

has anyone checked what other uni's are doing on outsourcing?

I think management should be required to wear ear plugs
on the golf course, so they don't come back to office with
'buzzword' bloat! ;-)

Laters,
Lee

Jason Cormie <Jason-lug at wormwood666.demon.co.uk> wrote: For the last year we have been on the brink of deploying "Windows Live @ EDU", 
whereby student email will be hosted by Microsoft, giving much bigger mail 
quotas than we could ever afford along with fancy bling features.

   http://get.live.com/edu

As one of the Uni email admins I have to look at it with an unbiased view 
solely on business reasoning.  By doing this we lose a helluva lot of control 
but gain an amazing amount of capacity and reduced management, all for "free". 
  This deal is aimed mainly at Unis with large,disparate, problematic mail 
systems, as we have been an exchange shop for the last 10 years we don't 
really fit that category, but the cost savings even for us are tantalising.

Personally I'm about 50/50 on the whole issue and won't voice opinion for or 
against (yes, M$ is the devil incarnate turning people into factory moulded 
consumers, etc, etc, but I have to be practical)  The upper echelons of 
university management are still arguing for/against this sytem and thats 
pretty much the only reason it has not be activated already.

This is quite a fundamental stab in the direction of Gordons previous 
statement.  Its the same as banks offering student accounts, get them at Uni 
and they will probably be with you for life...

--
Jason Cormie
Senior Information Specialist
Central Server Group
Information Services
University of Abertay Dundee

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