Desktop platforms Toolkit

Story: Microsoft wins £500m NHS contract

• 
• 

Will that be with or without IE?
Or haven't you read the latest news?

What seems like a bargain for some will end up as a never ending project filled with requirements for additional investments. Likely to be labelled 'unforseen'. Don't be surprised if a lot of such advises will come out of the corner of the Microsoft sponsored research and development that is to provide guidelines and toolkits.

Sure, Open Source will be possible. If you absolutly must, they'll say. But adviseable? Who will determine that? The boys and girls making the guidelines and toolkits? Or perhaps the managers reading those guidelines?

DRM, IE7, MIIS, BizTalk, .NET, FrameWork, SharePoint Portal, Longhorn and the rest are very much so more likely to offer 'the most functionality' (or whatever the hype term is then) if things are kept 100% Microsoft . Depanding on who you listen to. The usual tactic is to change one thing at a time. So that the best option for each step is to keep as much untouched as possible (gee, didn't see that one coming) and so forth. Never mind that many small ones still make a big one. And that the trick is to know what you have and where you want to end up (total solution wise) to then define each step that needs to be taken to go from A to B. Not beginning with A and thru a series of steps find out what B looks like. Because the more steps you take that way the more likely it is that you'll end up having their B (which will be by that time your A again).

Sure, ripping out and replacing an existing Microsoft solution isn't wise. But that's not to say that one needs to invest in even more Microsoft products to get things done in ever more (cost) efficient ways. Plenty of examples out there that have already demonstrated that. Especially in the health sector.

Also interesting to note that this NHS project was originally estimated to cost £6bn and now, suddenly, for significant less.
Doesn't that ring a bell? How come it's so much cheaper all of a sudden? Doesn't it feel like having been ripped all those years? Why reward that and expect to get away with it?

I'm sure a bunch of sales people and managers celebrated this deal. Singing the old consultant tune: "Stupid. You can pay me now or you can pay me later."

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread