Re: [Fed-Talk] Mac Gold Master (Careful what you ask for)
Re: [Fed-Talk] Mac Gold Master (Careful what you ask for)
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Mac Gold Master (Careful what you ask for)
- From: Timothy J Miller <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:43:55 -0500
On Mar 24, 2008, at 8:45 AM, Zinnato, Ronald NAVAIR wrote:
Ah, yes. From a pure cost perspective. Or at least the upfront
costs. The
problem is, that's all they are focused on. They are so bent on
reducing
applications and saving a few dollars up front, that they fail to
see the
broad picture. When you have a group of people who know NOTHING
about a
specific field making decisions on what apps can stay and which have
to go,
it starts to become a big problem.
For many (or even most?) areas, this is more than sufficient. Does an
inventory clerk need more than email and his inventory application?
Probably not. In fact, giving him *more* than this would be counter-
productive. Look at point-of-sale terminals--one application, usually
centralized, and it works perfectly well for the *observed*
requirements (scan item, fetch data, total sale, update inventory).
Giving the PoS terminal the ability to hit the web is only asking for
trouble. :)
Figuring out line of business needs is not hard, but it is time
consuming and can't be done well remotely (i.e., you need to *sit with
and watch people actually work* to make the determination). You can't
even trust SMEs to provide the analysis because SMEs consistently
overestimate actual needs--they tend to look at "what I'd like to
have" rather than "what I actually use".
Would I like working in a heavily managed environment like this?
Probably not, but I'm not a typical user either, nor it my work easily
characterized--so my particular area wouldn't be a good candidate for
centralization.
It's the proper evaluation of work needs that's usually lacking,
coupled with the mistaken attitude that you can do it for *everyone*
that are the real problems. This is not any particular flaw with the
centralized computing resources model. In fact, the centralized model
makes it even easier to add capabilities that were overlooked the
first time around.
-- Tim
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