One thing I've noticed..
Government employees HATE change and will fight it tooth and nail.
Example:
Goffstown, NH (where I grew up and was very involved) upgraded the
registration process for cars to computer. Before they would use
typewriters.
The staff was fully trained and given "quick guides" along with manuals.
For over a -YEAR- people would come in. The same trained people would
get "confused", pull out the full manual, and take FOREVER to find the
answer. For a while they would even just go back and do it with the
typewriter.
They did this to protest against the new computer system, because they
didn't like it. Eventually they hired a new person due to another
leaving, the new person used the computers and ran circles around the
others. Because they started looking bad, they finally "got it" and did
it correctly.
Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
I was perusing the wiki entry on the HB1197 meeting
(http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/HouseBill1197), and noticed
something:
"Many of state's applications are mainframe based, most likely no similar
packages."
I'm not agreeing, I'm not disagreeing. But here's an interesting data point:
About a year ago, I sent $100 to the dep't of state, asking for two
months' worth of newly incorparated company filings. A couple of months
go by, I get nothing. A couple more, I try calling. I even visit.
Nobody says anything. Finally, I get my wife to call -- she actually
speaks with the person involved: apparently, they switched databases from
"mainframe" to "something else" (my guess: SQL Server on XP), and hadn't
been able to run reports since then. "Would you like your money back?"
I *STILL* haven't received said lists.
Which makes me wonder if:
a) The vendors are even kinda-sorta competent, and
b) if there may not be mainframe-side stuff that OSS could offload onto
Linux boxen at huge savings... IF the OSS vendor could actually --
successfully -- replicate the mainframe application's functionality.
Stuff for you database/etc., gurus out there to consider.
-Ken
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