Google Apps Not the DC Success Many Believe? 139
theodp writes "Google touts its partnership with the District of Columbia government, presenting it as quite the Google Apps success story. So as part of his coverage of last week's Gmail outage, nextgov's Gautham Nagesh called the DC government, but was told they hadn't heard of any reports of outages among city employees. Nagesh wrote this off to safeguards put in place for the government by Google, but readers tipped him off to another explanation: 'Despite all the press releases trumpeting Google in DC,' an anonymous commenter wrote, 'Exchange is still the city's primary email system.' Nagesh followed up, and was surprised to learn that there is indeed no Gmail in DC government. This all seemed rather strange to Nagesh, considering how much attention former DC CTO and current Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has received for implementing Google Apps for District employees. Reporting separately, CNET's Elinor Mills was told by a DC spokeswoman that while Google Apps is available to 38,000 DC city employees, only 4,000 are actively using it. The spokeswoman added that Gmail could potentially replace Microsoft Exchange, 'but this decision has not been made yet.'"
This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:1, Informative)
I live here, unfortunately, and the whole DC government is corrupt and inefficient. This is really not surprising to anyone familiar with the local government.
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maybe, just maybe, DC civil servants have a good reason for not using Google aps.
Well, I don't think they're going either way... and that could be the problem. Right now, they're paying a lot of money for two solutions. Granted the Google solution is cheaper, but both are costing the taxpayers money. Hopefully they'll be making a decision soon and not continuing to cost the taxpayers for indecisiveness....
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Well, I don't think they're going either way... and that could be the problem. Right now, they're paying a lot of money for two solutions. Granted the Google solution is cheaper, but both are costing the taxpayers money. Hopefully they'll be making a decision soon and not continuing to cost the taxpayers for indecisiveness....
So call it a phased roll-out? We went through pretty much the same process at place where I work. We used Exchange when I started there. Then there was the option of switching over to Gmail. Then, when things seemed to be going smoothly, there was a forced deadline for when everybody had to switch.
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Since when is resistance to change a good reason?
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Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to agree. I am generally in favor of free and open source software. But MS exchange and the software ecosystem surrounding it is highly available, reliable, feature rich, painlessly scalable from a small operation up to hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of users at a price point that almost any business can afford. Its one of microsofts best products, and there really isn't anything I have seen in any competitors that can meet, much less, beat Exchange at its game.
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
As an open source evangelist, I also regretfully agree. While there are substitutes for many *parts* of the Exchange ecosystem, there is no other truly integrated system that works as well, is as comprehensive, provides the full gamut of functionality and is as mature and easy to use.
If you want to know how Google Apps as a whole compares to Exchange as a whole, compare the Google Apps spreadsheet application to MS Excel. Sure, it covers the functionality needed by little Johnny figuring out what a spreadsheet is, but the minute you need to do any *real* spreadsheet work, Google Apps just doesn't deliver.
That is true of the whole Google Apps framework. It's great for high school study groups and perhaps even university clubhouses, but when heavy lifting needs to be done, it doesn't cut the mustard. Anyone who thinkos otherwise hasn't spent any/enough time in a real, productive office workplace.
As I said, I regret to have to say this, as I'm a Linux only desktop user, and hate it every time I have to troubleshoot some guy's virus infested workstation. I *wish* open source could deliver, but it just can't - YET. Google Apps, THANK GOD, doesn't deliver. Moving from platform lock in on the desktop to another platform lock in where not only the software that I'm using but also my frakkin' USER DATA is also locked in is literally jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Can the Google fanboys please stop? Can't you idiots see that Google has the makings of an evil monopoly that makes Microsoft look like your friendly local corner store.
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I've used Linux for quiet some time and am lucky enough I can usually request Linux for my operating system at freelance jobs. That said I really don't give a rats ass about the cloud, Microsoft, Google, or where my data is.
At the end of the day all I care about is what works regardless of where it comes from. I have forgotten documents at home more than Google has had an outage preventing me from getting at my Gmail account. I have all my email a
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:5, Interesting)
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Exchange over Activesync? RPC over HTTPS? Seamless integration with Outlook?
(I know that Zimbra, a groupware product I used for a LONG time, had the basics of the first feature, but lacked everything else.)
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Quote by quote:
What is the benefit of Activesync or RPC over HTTPS? From my experience these seem to be kludgy hacks to make Exchange's protocol perform some of the basic features every other mail protocol can do easily.
Exchange over Activesync allows mobile devices to use most of Outlook's key functionality on supported mobile phones. This protocol is supported by Windows Mobile, BlackberryOS (with an intermediary BES server), iPhoneOS and any device capable of using GoodLink (which an intermediary GoodLink server). Yes, you can mimic similar functionality using Google IMAP4, Calendar and Contacts sync on the Android, but not only does this solution lack practically all of the remote managem
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, these kind of comparisons are very hard to do, because people that are familiar with Exchange usually aren't as familiar with other products, even if they looked at them or evaluated them.
From my perspective as someone who works for a small Microsoft Partner, the main advantage of Exchange over the competition is "it just works". Getting a small company with 10-50 employees up and running on Microsoft's Small Business Server 2008 is something that can be done in a few days, and it offers much more than just Groupware (managed updates, group policies, file sharing, intranet using Sharepoint services).
Outlook integrates into Sharepoint, Active Directory, etc. without the need to configure anything. You can easily get a fairly standardized setup without much hassle or the necessity to develop or create deployment plans, default configurations, etc. in house, as SBS already ships with a very decent configuration that only needs slight adjustments.
My most extensive experience with another Groupware product was Lotus Notes, using both the native Notes Client and the Outlook Connector. Notes gives you several things that Outlook does not have (e.G. offline capable applications that can replicate their database when the network is back up), but it's much more of a hassle to use. The Outlook plugin sometimes just doesn't work, lags behind released Outlook versions (took forever till they got a 2007 version out), etc.
I know that the Slashdot groupthink here disagrees, but Microsoft does indeed products that work together very well. You can all your non line of business infrastructure from Microsoft, and you'll get a pretty decent system, even though there are some suppliers out there that offer partially better products (e.G. VMware).
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I agree with you in general, but with a caveat. Google apps present a far better way to organize information than Exchange does. Yes, it's mature and people understand it. However, it's very difficult to properly version documents with Exchange. With Google Apps, it's effortless. Collaboration is built in. I'm working on a project right now that's split into 5 spreadsheets, and there are two separate copies, not counting the numerous copies that have been sent via e-mail as we've been modifying back and for
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If you want version control and such, you'll need Sharepoint. Exchange is not equal to Google Apps.
Exchange + Sharepoint + Office is.
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Open source can deliver just fine. We've got CalDav, IMAP, OpenOffice, etc... for doing your basic and advanced office functions. Your mistake is confusing Google Apps with open source software.
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"Open source can deliver just fine."
Can you effortlessly sync calendars (yes, calendar*s*), notes and addressboks seemlessly to your mobile devices as Exchange plus Activesync? While your main data is not duplicated and stays at an LDAP server easy accesible by a ton of other apps? With document routing for approval?
Seriously, I don't think open source deliver just fine on this field.
But, hey, I would be very glad if you can show us *your* opensource solution (not the one that you heard it should work but
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Scalix does all this.
Activesync is pay for only though.In fact it can use an AD ldap directory just fine.
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"Scalix does all this."
Do you really use it? Do you use it for contacts, notes and calendars on mobile devices? Which devices? How many users? Which desktop software (if any) have you tested against Scalix?
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As an open source evangelist, I also regretfully agree. While there are substitutes for many *parts* of the Exchange ecosystem, there is no other truly integrated system that works as well...
I would put a caveat here. Nothing works as well, out of the box from one provider. If, you're willing to pay someone to put together a solution for you using CalDav, OpenOffice, etc. it can be integrated just as well, and sometimes better. The issue being, you actually have to pay someone like Redhat, IBM, or Canonical to build a good solution and you have to have a good idea of what you want. This is, or course, not how big business in the US works. Sure IBM does a lot of business, but mostly in selling l
Why "Integrated"? (Score:2)
I mean, I understand why the end-user interface should be integrated, or at least well linked together.
But the whole Unix philosophy, the whole reason it works so well, is that we tend to isolate things as "do one thing and well". If I were to try to compete with Exchange, I'd use Postfix for the actual SMTP server, probably something like RoundCube for the webmail, etc. Indeed, even Postfix can be broken down into tiny, replaceable programs that communicate via pipes.
Why would I want one monolithic app tha
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But the whole Unix philosophy, the whole reason it works so well, is that we tend to isolate things as "do one thing and well". If I were to try to compete with Exchange, I'd use Postfix for the actual SMTP server, probably something like RoundCube for the webmail, etc. Indeed, even Postfix can be broken down into tiny, replaceable programs that communicate via pipes.
Why would I want one monolithic app that handles everything?
Because sometimes it works better? Even in Unix world, there's Emacs as a testament to the fact that Unix philosophy isn't a universal architectural principle that's 100% right.
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Because sometimes it works better? Even in Unix world, there's Emacs as a testament
...to the fact that some people would much rather use vim.
Moreover, Emacs isn't monolithic. Aside from the fact that it's just a set of Lisp scripts for a much simpler editor (TECO), there's the fact that most of the more interesting things you might want to do with it are also going to call some external program at some point.
One obvious example: Version control. I very much doubt anyone's actually written bindings for Emacs for all the various version control systems it supports. Specifically, I know it s
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Moving from platform lock in on the desktop to another platform lock in where not only the software that I'm using but also my frakkin' USER DATA is also locked in is literally jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Everything is easy to export from gmail/gdocs/etc.
Can the Google fanboys please stop? Can't you idiots see that Google has the makings of an evil monopoly that makes Microsoft look like your friendly local corner store.
Google hasn't done anything "evil" yet. So far I'm far more trusting of them than of Microsoft, which does evil anti-consumer stuff at every opportunity.
The only stipulation is that Google (of course) uses all your info internally to improve their advertising service.
But since companies like Microsoft and Yahoo already give away much of your info to other companies, internal use isn't really anything to get miffed about.
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Most of the things Google Apps spreadsheet doesn't work for are things for which a spreadsheet isn't a good solution in the first place, though they are commonly used because corporate IT policies often let anyone build complex spreadsheets (which become unmaintainable nightmare apps) but prevent most employees from using re
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Microsoft Outlook 2007 running on Microsoft Windows XP hangs on me all the time in mid email. I'd hardly call that stable.
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Exchange has a lot going for it, but so does Google Apps-- for example, instead of spending $500 (WinServ license) + $20 per WinServ cal + $1100 (exchange license) + $40 per exchange cal + $200 for office (and outlook), you could just sign up fo
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I would say inefficient at a minimum. 38,000 employees? That's almost as much as my entire state government has.
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Did you even bother reading the article summary? It is plainly a Google problem if they're misrepresenting the level of adoption by the local DC government. Off to RTFA.
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I'm sorry, but many forget that most people expect e-mail to work just like plain post.
I for example was putting up with all bugs and weirdness of Thunderbird 1.x simply because it was easier for me to stay with it than to migrate anywhere. (Doubly so as I was Netscape Messenger user for many years). Only after I have learned that Tb 2.x is going to drastically improve all the bugs and bring more of the Outlook Express craziness to the boat, when I have finally made decision to start trying out alternat
Apps (Score:1)
Are all Google needs for Android to take off in the mobile market. From what I've seen Android is superior to IPhone OS, BB OS, and WinMobile so once it takes off with the mainstream non-geek market, It could possibly become the next big thing.
Google could eventually do something like this:
1. Make Chrome a browser OS
2. Established cloud computing services on Android mobile devices
3. ???
4. Profit!
-P
Re:Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
And how much "corporate control" can you exert over an Android phone? Encryption? They have a central management server you can install?
I really doubt an offering from Google is ready for the government scene. They may be perfect for home consumer markets, which is fine, but not government or 'secure' corporate.
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And how much "corporate control" can you exert over an Android phone? Encryption? They have a central management server you can install?
I really doubt an offering from Google is ready for the government scene. They may be perfect for home consumer markets, which is fine, but not government or 'secure' corporate.
People in the "secure" market have phones. The thing all phones have in common is that they can all be hacked; doesn't matter whether its an IPhone or a BB if someone wants your information, they can get it. It doesn't matter who writes the encryption, there's always someone better who will crack it.
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No, the difference is there might be someone who can crack a BlackBerry with encryption enabled, but there's no widely known attack that doesn't require 256-bit AES to be cracked... whereas anyone who wishes to
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People in the "secure" market have phones. The thing all phones have in common is that they can all be hacked; doesn't matter whether its an IPhone or a BB if someone wants your information, they can get it. It doesn't matter who writes the encryption, there's always someone better who will crack it.
Riiiight. Unlike the iphone and other POS phones, the blackberry has been audited from end-to-end [blackberry.com] and is certified to a number of different standards. The blackberry platform has been audited by:
NATO
Fraunhofer I
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The general point is that if someone wants your data badly enough, they'll get your data. Whether it's worth it for what it'll cost is a completely different question. Using a BB over an iPhone just closes off one of the many vulnerabilities that exist when humans try to handle confidential information.
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No there isn't someone better who can crack it. Encryption really does work.
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Additionally, if your blackberry is stolen and you are worried, theres a nifty "wipe handheld" option in the BES, as well as the ability to remove redirection. Additionally, if your WinMobile or iPhone is stolen, y
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You do realize that ActiveSync allows the admin and / or the user to remotely wipe the device? Supported on both Windows Mobile and the iPhone....
And consumers with a MobileMe subscription can wipe their iPhone (and other stuff like locate it / display messages etc) from www.me.com?
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I really doubt an offering from Google is ready for the government scene. They may be perfect for home consumer markets, which is fine, but not government or 'secure' corporate.
You're right! Anyone who needs real corporate or government-level security uses Microsoft. Oh wait...
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Consider this:
I've seen lots of companies using local authentication for their linux boxes, along with a supposedly secret root password configured in every machine. There are a lot of centralized directory and authentication options for linux. But, how much people use it? But, they do know how to setup Microsoft's Active Directory and setup clients to use it.
Linux has ACLs for some time know, something that is way better than the old permission schemes. But, again, I've never seen it widely deployed across
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Not to mention companies that spend a lot of money with VPN solutions with two factor authentication, and at the same time leave ssh outgoing unmonitored on their firewalls.
In this scenario having remote access to your network is just a matter of issuing
ssh2 -R 1234:localhost:23 username@host
And now, all traffic which comes to port 1234 on the server (host) will be forwarded to port 23 on the client (localhost).
So, again, there's a lot of people out there using linux without actually knowing shit about sec
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There
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Palm took an android kernel and ran a completely new userland/frontend (WebOS) on top
Do you have any evidence that Palm took the kernel from Android, as opposed to a stock ARM Linux kernel? Actually, reading the rest of your post, do you know what 'kernel' means?
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Android is an open source OS. This means if there's a feature you need, you can add it.
I don't know if there's a central management server already built, but there's no reason you couldn't write or adapt one.
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Playing with my girlfriend's new Android we managed to freeze it utterly within a minute of playing with the piss-poor camera*, and after connecting to my wifi once successfully it won't do it anymore, for no reason we can see.
The rest of the phone is shaping up to be awesome (especially when available on such cheap contracts and with google apps fully intergrated), but it needs some improvement to get the non-geek majority away from thier shiney iPhones.
*(The camera broke when trying to take a photo of my
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*(The camera broke when trying to take a photo of my face, so it might not be an issue with the phone...)
Like the rest of us, your a nerd. How dare you blame the phone?
Anyway, wouldn't the camera breaking be more of a hardware problem?
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Anyway, wouldn't the camera breaking be more of a hardware problem?
Sorry, to clarify I meant that the phone froze while trying to take the photo, possibly because the lighting was bad. It also takes a bloody age to autofocus and then take the picture. Maybe the combination of my horrible nerd face and the rictus grin you get after 5 seconds of waiting for a photo to be taken was too much for the poor software? I'd still probably buy one though, as for everything else (apart from the wifi connection problem
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Wait a second, you and your girlfriend were testing out a new camera...
And you decided to take a picture of your face?
In the same situation, my girlfriend would have been nude within seconds.
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I thought blow up dolls came nude....
FTC should be involved (Score:2)
If Google used this 'news' to help their stock prices or increase sales, id call it fraud. And they might too.
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Yes, that is what i meant, donno why i typed FTC.. but was closer then FCC :)
Re:FTC should be involved (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google used this 'news' to help their stock prices or increase sales, id call it fraud. And they might too.
1) You're assuming that Google had any idea. They got an agreement from DC that they could use them in advertising (I'm fairly certain, since no one trumpets a customer without such an agreement) that that's it. They don't get to tell DC how to use it.
2) There's nothing false in saying you made a large sale when you did. Your claim of fraud is similar to claiming fraud when Ford touts a giant sale of a fleet of cars to the military when the military is just putting them into bunkers and never driving them.
3) Do you really think an apps sale to DC affected Google's stock price? I dare you to find a blip on their chart.
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If Google used this 'news' to help their stock prices or increase sales, id call it fraud. And they might too.
1) You're assuming that Google had any idea. They got an agreement from DC that they could use them in advertising (I'm fairly certain, since no one trumpets a customer without such an agreement) that that's it. They don't get to tell DC how to use it.
2) There's nothing false in saying you made a large sale when you did. Your claim of fraud is similar to claiming fraud when Ford touts a giant sale of a fleet of cars to the military when the military is just putting them into bunkers and never driving them.
3) Do you really think an apps sale to DC affected Google's stock price? I dare you to find a blip on their chart.
OF course they knew. They are just trying to save face ( and their butts ) by claiming ' we didn't know'.
It's illegal if you knew the statement was bogus and used it to prop up value. I have seen other things like that happen.
I don't care if it was effective or not, if the intent was there, its illegal.
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I don't care if it was effective or not, if the intent was there, its illegal.
The intent to do WHAT? You're claiming false advertising. What I'm saying is that, ignoring how horribly weak your claim is, false advertising does not equal securities fraud. You would have to demonstrate an attempt to manipulate stock price, and there really wasn't. Now, if this had been a major uptick in the order of magnitude of apps customers AND apps was a major revenue source then you might have a leg to stand on.
Actually, even then there's the problem of intent. Did anyone at Google unexpectedly sel
User Inertia (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in government. Not DC.
The problem is user inertia, it always has been, it always will be.
We deployed SharePoint years ago. Did that improve anything? No. User's still send attachments in email, still use network drives for collaboration, and still use spreadsheets to gather data.
The spreadsheet thing is really funny. The boss finally put the spreadsheet up on SharePoint and sent a link to it. But you still see people downloading the spreadsheet from the site, filling out their portion, then uploading it with a new name. Then yelling over the cubicle wall that they are done with their tasking. We've gone through training and tried to get them to do it the more efficient way. Impossible task.
Trying to get users to switch off of software and methods they've used for years is a near impossibility.
Re:User Inertia (Score:4, Interesting)
You're very right.
As someone who has managed a few mail migrations for government agencies, and I probably could guess the reason why GMail isn't in use in DC: Calendaring. I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted over this bs.
Typical problem: you cannot instantaneously migrate GB's of email. But once you migrate the accounting department, they won't be able to see free/busy status for the garbagemen, which is essential for some reason. Or worse, the conference room!
So instead of using the secretaries to actually do something (government office still have them), they wait for a magic, half-baked technical solution.
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Actually, Google Apps (premier only) has support for a connector Google built to feed Exchange Free/Busy information into Google Apps. So it can be done with little trouble.
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Having a theoretically more efficient way to do the job is nice, but having a way that works now is priceless.
You have to show value before people will care about a new technology.
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You completely missed the point...
The process IS broken and it makes WAY more work for people. Using collaborative software is superior than you make it sound.
On top of that, in many cases, getting people in a group and saying raise your hand if X would do better than sending a f**n spreadsheet to the masses.
Re:User Inertia (Score:5, Funny)
We deployed SharePoint years ago. Did that improve anything? No.
Could that be because (from my experience at least), Sharepoint is as user friendly as the lost luggage desk at Franz Kafka International Airport?
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I've come to the conclusion that if you want people to change in an organization you have to TAKE AWAY the methods they did it before.
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Or take away the people...oops.
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I've come to the conclusion that if you want people to change in an organization you have to TAKE AWAY the methods they did it before.
I've come to the conclusion that if you want users to change their methods you have to provide them with a new method that is both learnable and better for them, not just for you. In my experience, sharepoint is generally harder to use than e-mail attachments, makes for a slower workflow, and has a learning curve, especially as it is usually implemented. Seriously, sending an e-mail with an attachment is easier than uploading a file and sending an e-mail with a link to the file. If you want users to have a
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My prior response was a half-truth humor remark. I agree though. The problem is that email is REALLY easy. Anything that replaces it has to be just as easy.
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You must have a very strange definition of "bulletproof"...
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If you can't tell the difference between the server and the client, how the hell are you a competent admin?
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I understand and have worked in that environment, as well. But, it is also clear from your statement that you have never worked in government and especially in government with a union.
All it takes is one guy filing a "Change in work environment" complaint with the union and the boss's "new process" becomes not only moot, but it will become a forbidden choice for all time and
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Re:User Inertia (Score:4, Informative)
You don't really work with SharePoint, do you? I mean, this isn't even true and hasn't been for some time.
We have a number of 3rd party apps that are very SharePoint aware. You see, if you really worked with SharePoint, you'd understand that out-of-the-box MOSS/WSS is a very basic product that will do small or simple office needs. SharePoint has a fairly powerful and open API. It did have problems with documentation but most of that is in the past. If you want integration, go with a company that provides SharePoint awareness, or you can write your own stuff (Isn't that what geeks do? Isn't that what the Linux guys like to say? "If it doesn't do what you want it to do, write your own plug-in/module/web part/feature.")
If you are going to make a point, use talking points that don't come from SharePoint 2001.
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It only works in Internet Explorer
You don't really work with SharePoint, do you? I mean, this isn't even true and hasn't been for some time.
I do believe you are correct, sort of. I had the misfortune to use SharePoint at a software development company a few years back. Some new management folks brought in implemented it as a company wide solution to all our problems, and did not consult any of the engineering staff, which was the majority of the company. They wanted it to be a surprise. "Surprise! We wasted a lot of money licensing and building a SharePoint solution to solve all our company's problems." Of course the people talked into implemen
Bad Integrators and Oversell (Score:2)
I'm not too familiar with OS X platforms that work or don't with SharePoint. The problem with some Linux installs, and we have a few, are that dependencies aren't well documented. Your best bet is to use the .net plug in for FF.
The other problem is that a lot of companies are told about all the wonderful things that SharePoint does, except, most of the integrators doing the selling are telling you about things that have to added on to the system.
SharePoint workflow sucks donkey balls. Don't sell it to your
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I'm not too familiar with OS X platforms that work or don't with SharePoint. The problem with some Linux installs, and we have a few, are that dependencies aren't well documented. Your best bet is to use the .net plug in for FF.
And therein lies the big problem. The last time MS was selling "crossplatform" and "futureproof" solutions it was applications built on IE, largely depending on ActiveX, and quite a few gullible people believed them. Those companies are now locked into Web apps they can't afford to upgrade or replace and are constantly shelling out license fees to MS just to set up another Web terminal that should cost nothing. Why would any administrator/purchaser in their right mind assume Sharepoint is going to be any di
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You see, if you really worked with SharePoint, you'd understand that out-of-the-box MOSS/WSS is a very basic product that will do small or simple office needs. SharePoint has a fairly powerful and open API. It did have problems with documentation but most of that is in the past.
I'll have to call bull on that. I had a misfortune of working with SharePoint 2007 for about half a year; my wife is working with it for 3 years now, as an analyst/architect (and previously a developer). Our shared conclusion is that SharePoint extensibility APIs plainly suck.
First of all, saying "it did have problems with documentation" doesn't do it justice - I'm not sure how you call it when upon release, the API documentation for a product includes a number of major classes, the only documentation for w
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Inertia...oops, I put that in the title.
I have a feeling the only browser you used that choked on SharePoint was Opera. You definitely didn't try FF.
Firefox handles SharePoint wonderfully. But, remember, SharePoint makes use of JavaScript, so if you are blocking JavaScript, you have a problem.
In my office, we have a mix of FireFox 2 - 3.x, and IE 6 through 8 (IE 6 is thanks to EDS and NMCI for being behind the curve).
The only time FireF
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What does this say about Vivek Kundra? (Score:2)
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Dvorak? Isn't he famous for trolling[1] people to get more ad hits?
He makes insinuations that Vivek might not have the degree he claimed to have. But he doesn't do a thorough investigation, and just shoots his mouth first.
Maybe the UMD newsdesk is wrong (they could be after all), but they did say that:
"Vivek Kundra moved from chief technology officer of D.C. to being the first federal chief information officer, working in the White House. Kundra holds an undergraduate degree from UM in psychology and a mast
Keep in mind that you're talking about DC (Score:3, Interesting)
While I was living in DC (in the District itself, mind you) and working for PricewaterhouseCoopers, I met with the CIO of the DC Public Schools to see about doing some pro bono work to help with their information technology problems. She spent an hour describing just how wretched, disjoint, and underutilized their IT infrastructure was, and we came to the joint conclusion that there wasn't a lot that I could do to help.
This was about 10 years ago, and I was looking just as the DC Public Schools system, not the District as a whole. But as anyone (else) who has lived in the District for an extended period, particularly as a private citizen, can tell you, the District of Columbia is a profoundly dysfunctional government.
That said, I'm not sure Google should be going around touting their adoption in the District as a success story, since -- as per the original post above -- any effort to check out what's actually going on is likely to be quite disappointing. ..bruce..
Don't be a girlie man, flip the switch (Score:5, Insightful)
The spokeswoman added that Gmail could potentially replace Microsoft Exchange, 'but this decision has not been made yet.'"
Quit dorking around the flip the switch already. We did and it was the best move we ever made. It was a little rocky at first, then smooth sailing ever since. We've noticed two outages in the last year, I think there have been three total. Only the recent one generated any calls. Overall that makes it more reliable than Exchange.
Not sure what holds companies back from making the change. I've heard the arguments, they don't hold up to reality. Google doesn't spy on our email and if it's something really sensitive we can add a password to the document or encrypt the content. I've done that exactly once in the last year. Your company email passes unencrypted through dozens of relays, regardless of what email provider you use. Any one of those relays could be copying and storing those messages. So what would make Google any bigger risk than any one of them?
Backups are the other thing I hear about a lot. If it's that important, you can set up Gmail to auto-forward some or all of your messages to another account or you can use any number of tools in Windows, Linux and Mac to keep backups, if you feel the need. So far email backups have been a big waste of time and drive space, but I suppose it's better that small waste than a big loss if something bad did happen.
That change freed up a lot of money. We didn't need an Exchange admin and we saved a bundle on license fees.
Re: (Score:1)
Not sure what holds companies back from making the change. I've heard the arguments, they don't hold up to reality. Google doesn't spy on our email and if it's something really sensitive we can add a password to the document or encrypt the content. I've done that exactly once in the last year.
"Hmm, wonder which one of his emails holds the Top Secret Data...".
"Maybe the one that's encypted?"
"Nah, it's probably one of the others!"
Seriously though, if you need to rarely send sensitive data, isn't it far more secure if you encrypt everything you send, and for very little extra effort?
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3 times in the last year? My mail server hasn't been unavailable outside of a short scheduled maintaince window 3 times in the last 10 years.
You can put your email on someone elses servers, thats fine, I won't. My internal email doesn't pass over anything unencrypted, our servers require SSL or TLS.
Doing backups on the client side? Have you ever dealt with more than 3 PCs before? Are you nucking futz? My email backup is an rsync command line. It may be hard for someone who is clueless, but anyone with
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Not sure what holds companies back from making the change.
A conservative approach to new technologies, when the old ones work good enough. The need for SLAs and other vendor agreements. Lawyers insisting on data retention policies. The rational or irrational concern of being out of control if something goes wrong.
Google doesn't spy on our email
Actually, Google *does* spy on your email, definitely for advertising, probably for marketing, and possibly they (or individuals with access) are corrupt, but that's not the big privacy concern about Google.
The big problem lawyers have with Gmail is th
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Your company email passes unencrypted through dozens of relays, regardless of what email provider you use. Any one of those relays could be copying and storing those messages. So what would make Google any bigger risk than any one of them?
I worked at a software company that produced the software used by an unnamed nation-wide tax preparation company. While returns moving from office to office or to the IRS filing centers were sent securely, if any problems came up with a return it was standard operating procedure to email the tax returns. This is a document that includes your current name, address, SSN, the amount of money you made, and your banks routing and account numbers (for direct deposit.) Usually it was the program specific file whic
This one made me laugh outloud, thx! (Score:4, Interesting)
As an ex-DC resident of many years, I had to laugh out loud when I read that there even was a partnership between Google and DC gov, and I was rolling on the floor thinking about the DC DMV using google docs or calender. I think most have just mastered the Google search field...maybe. I agree with WED Fan above, DC workers are not going to embracing new tech anytime soon. They are still suffering heart attacks over the office 2007 ribbon. And about those 4,000 that have made the huge dramatic mt. Everest leap to gmail, I bet most of them just have home accounts. Even more hilarious was when I searched for a DC gov group and only found ONE. It has 3 members and ONE post. Boy, they are really using that Goog feature no? But I may have a chip on my shoulder, as when I went into south west DC to renew my driver's license right around the time of the last Clinton election, I was asked first if I was a Republican or a Dem before getting any service. I told the big bottomed woman that I was of course a Dem and not to be fooled by my Fitzgerald Bold Pinstripe from Brooks Bros. We had a laugh, but I seriously think that if I had told the truth I would not have gotten renewed in the blazing speed that I did (two hours). For sure that lady is not using any kind of cloud computing today, unless you count daydreaming at the terminal.
data theft (Score:1)
Gmail? What about the other apps? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I recall reading was that in 2008, DC decided to start transitioning to Google Docs for replacing Word and Excel, and as a starting point for an all web application interface going forward. There was one brief mention that Gmail would be provided as well, but nothing that said they were going to use it as the primary e-mail client/server.
So I guess my question would be, where is DC with this transition and where had they planned to be? Since e-mail was not the focus of the project, where are they with the other applications? Have they signed any new licenses for MSOffice or for a new version? Do they have any desktops without MSOffice? Do any of there users run word processing and spreadsheets with Google Apps instead of Word and Excel?
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone still has Office installed of course, since they actually do have to communicate with people outside the DC government as well.
I don't understand your reasoning. Why could they not send .doc files or .xls or .pdf files generated by Google Docs and use it to read said docs when communicating with external companies and organizations? Are you trolling or do you have some rationale you did not bother to explain?
Gmail? (Score:2)
This may be kind of a dumb question, but what does whether or not DC uses Gmail have to do with their deal for Google Apps?
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