From: Mike N. 

>
>Dale N. Frantz, CIO of Tacoma, Wash.-based Auto Warehousing Co.,
> is working on a proof-of-concept project with his company's home-grown
>ERP system. The system is built on Microsoft's SQL server technology,
>but he's testing whether a front-end application would allow Macs to
>work with the SQL-based system.

   At least he is using a standard product for his foundation.    I have a
customer using Helix - all in awe of its graphical design methodology.
However, it's depressing to propose simple interchange with his system such
as XML or CSV and be told that it is  a major development effort.  ?? Major
development to be able to consume XML ??   In the end I'll have to screen
scrape some web forms in order to exchange data with them.

>Another big turnoff: strong-arm sales tactics. Last year, Microsoft
>notified Frantz that he might have some improperly licensed software
>products in his environment. Microsoft wanted to send some analysts to
>search through the company for any license violations.
>
>Frantz was surprised because he kept meticulous records of his purchases
>and license. He did an internal audit and shared the results with
>Microsoft, but Redmond wasn't satisfied.

   I can sympathise with this, having received dozens of threatenting bogus
BSA letters several years ago.  I haven't heard much about the BSA recently
- perhaps because it was so obvious that it was just the Microsoft licence
enforcement department that this is what they call themselves now.

>Silver said there are technologies available that allow Macs to work in
> a Windows environment, but they're fairly expensive and not always
>a smooth user experience. Apple's Boot Camp technology allows
>Macs to run both Windows and Mac's OS X on one machine. But
>users have to reboot to move from one OS to the other.

   And this is about as successful as IBM Warp in moving people away from
Windows - in the end you still have the same Microsoft licensing lawyer
swarm calling at your door, the same licensing costs, etc.

>"As organizations bring in new applications, in general they are
>OS agnostic. They're browser-based applications, Ajax applications,
> Flash. That is the general trend. The issue is the older, legacy
>applications. They don't leave as fast as new applications come in."

   Flash - still creates pukkey applications.   Ajax creates some nice
apps.    The older legacy apps can be very difficult and expensive to
migrate, depending on what the app is.

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