Conference 7.286::digital

    Probably because our internal IS group just "went with the flow" as
    opposed to doing what was needed.  Just look at the Exchange
    implementation which now REQUIRES us to have 3K of equipment at each
    desktop to read mail where we used to need $300 to do it.
    
    3,000 * 60,000 = $180,000,000
    
    To equip each desktop with a reasonable amount of monitor, disk, memory
    software, support, etc. (and, that's a CONSERVATIVE) estimate mind you.
    
    So, rather than spend that on marketing, we'll spend it on upgrading
    the 'infrastructure' so that everybody can get gooey messages while we
    market ourselves out of existence.
    
    Sounds like great *IS* focus to me!  And, while we're doing that, let's
    web-ize everything so we can be all modern.  Never mind that the WEB
    based systems connect just as badly as the old VTX systems do.
    
    When you don't know what to do, sometimes organizations just spend
    money to give the illusion of progress.  That's what we seem to be
    doing with NT...
    
    aarugh,
    j
    ^--becoming a luddite...

>>    3,000 * 60,000 = $180,000,000

This makes the highly invalid assumption that all of the current 60K employees
do not have PCs on the desktop.  I don't have one, but I'd venture that a large
number do already, most likely most of the 60K.

						Brian

    re: .-1
    
    The assumption is not entirely invalid.  When the Exchange roll-out
    began the percentage of folks with PC's on their desktop was relatively
    low.  Moreover, the percentage of folks with PC's CAPABLE of handling
    Windows 95 or, worse from a resource standpoint, NT along with
    exchange, the latest flavor of office, etc was EXTREMELY low.  The
    money being spent in MCS alone to equip and upgrade to get day-to-day
    productivity applications functioning is staggering.  As I noted in an
    earlier note on Exchange, there appears to have been little analysis
    done prior to leaping into this implementation.

    It also makes the highly invalid assumption that there is a one-time
    $3K cost of having a PC on your desktop.
    
    $3K (internal cost) would get you a *very* nice PC.  A 180 MHz Pentium
    with 2 GB of disk and a 15" monitor is under $2K (IEG).  However,
    you'll probably spend a lot more than $1K in labor maintaining the
    thing (installing/upgrading software, fixing problems, etc.), and that
    cost is a recurring cost.

==========================================================================
To ANSWER the question  in .0, look in \\gpsnote1\gpswinnt.  
==========================================================================
My reponse to .1 is:
==========================================================================

>    Probably because our internal IS group just "went with the flow" as
>    opposed to doing what was needed.  Just look at the Exchange
>    implementation which now REQUIRES us to have 3K of equipment at each
>    desktop to read mail where we used to need $300 to do it.

Interesting perception, since CCS has a fully documented implementation 
plan, from white papers down to staging documentation.  The Exchange 
program in particular was based on a combined effort of the Business Units, 
CCS, and Microsoft.  The MAIN reason CCS began deploying NT and Exchange 
internal was because the Business Units wanted it.   I'd also bet that a 
lot more of potential customers are installing NT than VMS (it's called 
growing the business). 

For those of you with short memories, it took at least 7 years, and 
millions of dollars in hardware and R&D to get ALL-IN-1 to it's current 
state.  I'm not even going to go down a Decnet/OSI rathole.  

>    Sounds like great *IS* focus to me!  And, while we're doing that, let's
>    web-ize everything so we can be all modern.  Never mind that the WEB
>    based systems connect just as badly as the old VTX systems do.

Given the proper attitude (hard to find in some people), PC's can be 
productivity tools. I for one rely heavily on the ability to share complex 
information easily, go to the web daily to get information and drivers to 
support customers.  Less techinical folks can now point and click to 
information in seconds that they may never have gotten to before.

Since Digital's service business is a multi-million dollar facet of it's 
revenue, and Digital is now the largest user and provider of Exchange 
implementations in the world, something doesn't seem to be so bad with 
this picture, does it (it's called growing the business, expanding your 
skillset, and guess what, sometimes that costs money).

    Let me play devil's advocate for a second here.  I don't think it's
    fair to say that all these PCs that are capable of running win95 were
    purchased soley to run Exchange client.  A lot of the arguments in this
    thread aren't specific to the Exchange rollout at Digital -- you could
    say the same about any company moving from terminal/mainframe
    model to the Wintel desktop client/server model.  One can argue whether
    or not that's cost-effective, or whether it really improves efficiency
    of the workforce, but that's what corporate america is doing.  I think
    there's a strong incentive to do the same at Digital, even if only it
    helps us understand our customer's situations and problems. 
    Maintaining PCs is expensive.  So is maintaining clusters of VMS
    systems.  It's even more expensive to keep rolling to the 'latest and
    greatest', in terms of hardware, software, transition pain, etc.  But
    isn't that the nature of the business?
    
    	Steve

>...The MAIN reason CCS began deploying NT and Exchange 
>internal was because the Business Units wanted it...
    
    I'd be interested to know where you obtained this information.  I've
    only heard that Bob Palmer wanted it...

    >To ANSWER the question  in .0, look in \\gpsnote1\gpswinnt.  
    
    This information only answers how, not why, as far as I could see
    (although there is a lot of information there and I didn't wade through
    it all.)
    

    Re: >...The MAIN reason CCS began deploying NT and Exchange
        > internal was because the Business Units wanted it...
        
        I'd be interested to know where you obtained this
        information.  I've only heard that Bob Palmer wanted it...
    
    I spoke to someone high on the food chain of the Exchange rollout a few
    days ago, and he said the executive committee issued an edict.
    (Someone remind me who the executive committee is besides BP.)  I
    did enjoy hearing him say that Claflin had used Exchange to send
    a message to BP, and BP hadn't received it.
                      

One example:

MCS had started their own deployment/pilot of Exchange, then engaged CCS, 
who worked with them to develop the roll-out (planning, building and tuning 
a NT Infrastructure along the way).
 
Currently the SBU (among others) has their own Exchange environment that 
links into the CCS Exchange Core.

So, maybe everbody's right...Bob spoke, the BU's listened and CCS is the 
service provider.

There's an index00.txt in the root that gives a brief directory.  
The document NT_REQ.DOC contains some information on the business 
justification (which to me is the WHY). 

>The document NT_REQ.DOC contains some information on the business 
>justification (which to me is the WHY). 
    
    Thanks for the pointer.  Unfortunately, I can't read the document.  I
    get "Can not load Word for Windows 2.0 files".

RE: .4

>    It also makes the highly invalid assumption that there is a one-time
>    $3K cost of having a PC on your desktop.

I agree that the one-time cost is the most minor part of the expense.
Estimates that have come from some of the major players (I believe it 
was Gartner, but it could have been IDC) stated that the average loaded
cost of a PC is $14-$16K per year, when you count software and all of 
the necessary infrastructure.
    
>    $3K (internal cost) would get you a *very* nice PC.  

Not if you count all of the other costs associated with the PC, as you
started to in your paragraph, and especially not if you specify a notebook
PC.  The active matrix color screens by themselves add a huge amount to
the price.

-- Ken Moreau

    re .6

    "..............., but that's what corporate america is doing.  I think
    there's a strong incentive to do the same at Digital, even if only it
    helps us understand our customer's situations and problems."

    I think it's more accrurate to say that Digital started with Exchange
    before our customers did. In other words, Digital implemented Exchange
    based on a prediction that Exchange would be the mail system best for
    the business (mostly meaning best for sales) and that its obvious
    problems and shortcomings would be solved.  Now Exchange may still be
    the best decision for Digital, but installed base numbers in a recent
    trade magazine showed Lotus Notes and Domino with an installed base
    orders of magnitude larger than Exchange. And the article questioned
    whether corporate America would rather buy their mail system from IBM
    than from MicroSoft. 

    So Digital customers may be going Exchange, but overall "corporate
    America" may prefer Notes. 

    - Bob

    re: .14
    
    You're quite right -- I was really referring to the
    Microsoft-on-the-desktop phenomenon when describing what corporate
    america is doing, not Exchange in particular.  And the point was that
    although it's expensive to get a PC on everyone's desk at Digital, the
    reasons for doing it go beyond just being able to run MS Exchange.  The
    Exchange deployment here just happens to be forcing the issue all at
    once, but in the long run, we're probably best off if most/all
    employees have direct access to a PC running Windows.
    
    	Steve

    Who cares what folks use in corporate america, I just want simple,
    reliable mail without a megagalactic access strategy.  Four years ago I
    used to be able to go to virutually any Digital office, login and get
    mail.  Now I need to dial-in to an 800 number (if MCI has enough lines
    for it which they didn't last week) and get SLOW mail at 28.8 (maybe)
    or fall back to 14.4 (typically).
    
    Ans, as far as the rollout goes and business units, infrastructure.
    hese are the people which did NOT give us homogeneous desktops across
    the field and headquarters, no kitted versions of software the same for
    everybody...
    
    And THESE are the same poeple who could NOT figure out that we needed
    consisten user names across Digital.....
    
    
    
    I mean, really, give me a break, this is NOT rocket science.  It's
    information management feifdoms fighting at the expense of supporting
    Digital really doing business.
    
    Sheesh....talk about techwars....
    
    disgusted,
    j
    

    The early MCS proposals on implementing Exchange asked how they were
    going to pay for it.  The answer was that they would save a lot of
    money not using CCS or paying for ALL-IN-1 accounts.  Not surprisingly,
    CCS saw this as a threat to its business and made a case that they
    could actually do it more cheaply than MCS could, because they had
    already done a lot of the work.  I don't know what happened with the
    SBU, but I assume it was something similar.
    
    I don't know that this whole Exchange deployment makes sense for
    Digital in light of the fact that the company already had one of the
    most advanced electronic mail systems in the world, connecting every
    employee, using whatever client the user (or his/her management)
    wanted.  But I don't think that CCS is the one that decided to do it. 
    There are now many underutilized VMS systems out there running for a few
    users, and CCS is still paying to run these.  I know of one case where
    there are no paying customers on a 3-node cluster of 6000's, but there
    is one critical application that can't be moved yet.  Meanwhile CCS has
    purchased many servers to replace this system.  
    
    CCS pushed very hard to get the disparate groups to agree on one
    strategy.  For example, there is the Global Address List.  This started
    out as many Global Address Lists, so if you wanted to send mail to a
    user in another group, you had to lookup their address manually and
    send to their Internet address.  Granted, it doesn't have the users on
    other systems, but neither did ALL-IN-1 (by implementation, not by
    product design).    
    
    I suppose that the mad rush to implementation of Exchange was due to
    past experience with plans dying on the vine.  Look at our Novell
    implementation, or UNIX.  
    
    Again, I didn't say that I agreed with the whole idea, but it has gone
    much more smoothly than I expected.  I used to be able to read my mail
    at home.  Now I'm not tempted to work from home.
    
    Ben

    >>>
    And THESE are the same poeple who could NOT figure out that we needed
    consisten user names across Digital.....
    >>>
    
    Careful here, it is extremely difficult to implement "consistent
    usernames .." across any global company. Those who state this do not
    understand the culture and naming issues in many parts of Asia, 
    Europe and in some cases North America (French/English naming issues
    in Canada for example).
    
    A global company does not run all of it's businesses the same way as it
    does in the U.S.
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry

    re: .16 -
    
    >>>
    And THESE are the same poeple who could NOT figure out that we needed
    consisten user names across Digital.....
    >>>
    
    Careful here, it is extremely difficult to implement "consistent
    usernames .." across any global company. Those who state this do not
    understand the culture and naming issues in many parts of Asia, 
    Europe and in some cases North America (French/English naming issues
    in Canada for example).
    
    A global company does not run all of it's businesses the same way as it
    does in the U.S.
    
    Regards,
    
    / Kerry